Metaversal

I. Water sits down

Every afternoon the water sits down
I sit down with the water and talk
A shadowed lily dances by the bank
No one ever understands its perfume
Beauty lives broken on sunsets
No flower of ivory or gold gleams
Time suffers in the broken arches
Washing over silk and seed.

II. Notice the breeze

How she arrives unannounced
Tousles the dry leaves
Wakes all the yellow flowers
Her relaxed flow waltzes in
Birdsong and holds you in eternal
Embrace within nature’s ballroom
Poetically or otherwise
Write with heart, commemorate in song.

III. Just tell it

At the centre of self-serving
Memoirs become enmeshed
Echoes of ancestral burdens
Need attention, hear them
Nourishing and from the soma
The point of view of a hawk is
Prolific in the language of sky
Through dragonfly eyes
Not orphaned but abandoned
Undesired and unbalanced
Rhythm of spirit is on edge.

Fotoula Reynolds, born in Australia of Greek heritage, lives in Victoria’s Dandenong Ranges. Along with four published poetry collections ­– ‘The Sanctuary of My Garden’ (2018), ‘Silhouettes’ (2019), ‘Along the Macadam Road’ (2020) and ‘Kairos (2022)’ – she was a 2019 US Pushcart Prize nominee, and her poems have appeared widely in magazines and journals in Australia and overseas. She convenes a local community poetry reading group, and attends and participates regularly in spoken-word events in Melbourne.

Readers’ original and unpublished poems of up to 40 lines can be emailed, with postal address, to [email protected]. Submissions should be in the body of the email, not as attachments. A poetry book will be awarded to each accepted contributor.