Published in Overland Issue 258 2025 · Uncategorized Trans pastoral Joel Keith How to tell cut rock from the natural wall of the gorge? Or the ducks from the moorhens plopped atop the screen-sheen of gorge water? Their wakes enclose the lake in wide parentheses. The swimmers swim and chatter with a naturalness whose opposite is what you are and which therefore is all that you desire. Their towels flutter like flags held to change, flutter and fly. What, what is it to be born in that bright nation? And not to be—only to guess at it and, guessing, have to reach toward—what tragic blessing? Joel Keith Joel Keith is a writer and musician living on unceded Wurundjeri land. Her work has appeared in Island, Cordite, The Suburban Review, Overland, and elsewhere. They are the editor of Voiceworks. More by Joel Keith › 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 18 May 202618 May 2026 · Militarisation Sacrificed for the Pentagon: on Australia’s “security” crisis Gwenaël Velge The connection between the Jarrah Forest, the submarine base, and the data centres is not metaphorical. It is the three pillars of AUKUS, made material in a single city. Pillar III strips the forest to supply aluminium and gallium to the other two pillars, gutting environmental and water security. 15 May 2026 · Friday Fiction The structure Dominic Carew We made it to the park by eight. The winter sun was filtering through the far trees in a wan, lemon trickle, the thin clouds sheets of white. The cool sky a rubbed-at blue. The grass squelched beneath our feet and elsewhere, thinned from wear, the earth stretched grassless and muddy and, in some parts, released a thick mist.
