Published in Overland Issue 221 Summer 2015 · Uncategorized Night air Vanessa Kirkpatrick In memory of my grandmother The full moon washes the garden in light. Bare branches of elm, a tumble of ferns, each stone on the path from my mother’s house to the door of your own. In the notes of the mopoke’s song descending again and again, I fall through night air. Think of your hands, still warm, reaching across the bed as you close your eyes. High winds shunt the ragged clouds so it seems the moon is skating backwards. I want to keep holding the hand that held my own as a child. Loss is a pure tone released from the body. A note in the darkness descending again and again. Vanessa Kirkpatrick Vanessa Kirkpatrick lives in the Blue Mountains. Her first collection, To Catch the Light (2013), won the inaugural John Knight Memorial Poetry Manuscript Prize and was commended for the 2013 Anne Elder Award. More by Vanessa Kirkpatrick › Overland is a not-for-profit magazine with a proud history of supporting writers, and publishing ideas and voices often excluded from other places. If you like this piece, or support Overland’s work in general, please subscribe or donate. Related articles & Essays 15 April 202415 April 2024 · open letter Statement of solidarity with Palestine and call to action from Victoria University staff, students and alumni VU NTEU Palestine Action Group We the undersigned members of the Victoria University community, sign this petition, to urgently appeal to Victoria University to take a principled stance against Israel's genocide of the Palestinian people. 12 April 202412 April 2024 · Friday Poetry Dido Caroline Williamson Growing up not comfortable exactly, there / were deaths and silences and other difficult things, / when you talk about that history later people / are sometimes lost for words. But as you are / growing up, things happen to other people which you / observe, not fully understanding.
