Independently Owned, Locally Grown, Community Loved
David Atkinson is a Sydney poet and winner of the inaugural Whitsundays Literary Heart Award Poetry Prize (2024).
Verandah by David Atkinson
In midsummer, broiled weatherboard,
it is impossible to sleep.
Our parents escape with us
to the gauze-lined expanse
of the veranda, to an inkling of air.
Waning daylight lustre blurs,
seconds slide into musk,
twilight dips into shadow.
In the open we are kneaded into nature.
The night breathes a soft-hued concerto,
the wildlife variations.
A trotting fox yawls its solitary call.
Beetles and moths are gathered
by candle light, restlessness reaches
up splintered posts. Childish rumination
on where somnolent snakes go at night.
The rabbits of the ridge emerge
from their hairpin burrows,
graze on untrodden shoots,
an eye alert for spectral shadows.
Beyond the stands of ringbarked trees
the muted moon rises
and the stars are glow worms
over the riverine flats.
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