A Poem-A-Day Celebration

Poem submission by E.K.Merrick

That ache for the sound of the rain on a tin roof,

to be held tight during a summer’s storm,

or lie awake in each other’s sweat on a

humid Sydney night.

Familiar voices, horizons like the scars on my hands

and that soothing lick of a language.

That ache to drive north on the Pacific, speeding away from

the harbour and lights. And for an hour,

there’s nothing,

nothing,

but the gums and the great expanse of the Hawkesbury.

And that ache to go back to those small coastal places

that define us more than we want to admit.

These places that we flee from, for fear that their rips

will drag us down and coerce us to stay in the sea,

a life lived as it always has been.

But it’s in these places to fall into the

arms of people loved forever,

despite our ever-shifting and contrasting landscapes.

And it’s these small coastal places that soothes this ache,

And it’s there to return home to, smiling.