Going Back to Granite Island
By Laurence Levy-Atkinson
October 15, 2023
October 15, 2023
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All the short day in July
We ran about the island, Granite and stone, Shaped and sculpted by wind and sea spray. The rain came in cycles We learned, so when it was gone We scrambled over the moss And wild flowers, and when it was back We hid in the hollows of boulders, Carved to our size by millennia. I don’t think I could have been happier, Not then or now; I was as floored As the exposed trees bent flat And growing sideways. So eight years to the day When we went back, The island only a short walk away, I was too scared to make it. You offered and I wanted to But something in me refused the gift. I think I preferred to believe it was just the same As we left it, all cragged and ancient. Something bigger than years With changes scaled way beyond any of us. |
Laurence Levy-Atkinson is a writer and poet based in Melbourne, Australia. His recent work can be found in: Cordite, Southerly, Australian Poetry Journal, Nightingale & Sparrow, Lothlorien and Green Ink, among others. He has been featured in the Slinkies emerging writers’ series curated by Spineless Wonders and shortlisted for the Anna Davidson Rosenberg Poetry Award. He can be found on YouTube and elsewhere @outofthepage.