Published in Overland Issue 239 Winter 2020 · Poetry Devonian Penelope Leyland In the hours of the tide’s chill retreat the bubbler crabs redraw the atlas. Pearls of sand spread and reach in strands the length of the beach, agreeing the coastlines of new continents, tracking minute deltas and dotted bays, pricking out the contours of mountain chains, the bare veins of rivers, and featureless oceans on parching, windswept foundations. Twice daily the sea sweeps its quick, careless palm over creation. Read the rest of Overland 239 If you enjoyed this piece, buy the issue Or subscribe and receive four brilliant issues for a year Penelope Leyland Penelope Layland is a Canberra poet. Her most recent book, Things I’ve thought to tell you since I saw you last, was short-listed for the Kenneth Slessor Prize in the 2019 NSW Premier’s Literary Awards. More by Penelope Leyland › 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 First published in Overland Issue 228 8 March 20248 March 2024 · Poetry POETRY Gareth Morgan as if a poem were a person, me, i get up in the morning / i buy coffee in a can, and wait / you have to keep calm, “don't get upset” / or it fucks everything up. the bosses who tell me this / are wise but stupid troopers. this is a political poem First published in Overland Issue 228 16 February 202419 February 2024 · Poetry Two poems from 36 Ways of Writing a Vietnamese Poem Nam Le But think about the children, super cute children, mute children, with uncommonly big eyes, children with hard eyes, eyes that have seen what no child’s eyes should see, children naked as the day wearing big smiles and no smiles, preternaturally wise, with mooned-out tummies and cleft palates and cataracts, deformities and birth defects ...