Live Encounters Poetry & Writing Volume One Nov-Dec 2026.
Light a Candle for the Dead, poems by Jane Downing.
Light a Candle for the Dead
Air growls across the roof tiles
rattles glass in the window frame
the storm explodes the powerlines
plunging the inside world into dark
as lightning goes on jagging the sky
as thunder roars its grief
Home in time thankful to miss
sluicing floods across the highway
at the other end lights still glowing
the wake going on for as long as it takes
those endless cups of tea
those gentle touches on the arm
Matches from the dark cave of the pantry
spark gas into a dancing ring of blue fire
saucepan set to playact as jug
water boiled to smothered lava
bubbles surging to the surface
breaking heat and steam
Torches in mobile phones
are too interrogative candlelight must do
a gifted christening candle
tall and slender white as a priest’s surplice
the flame wavers
the tea bag steeps
easier to snuff the wick
drink in the dark
Oncoming Storm
The sky has taken on the tissue thinness
of old skin, the earth holds its anger underground
The cockatoos see it coming, heckle loud
as footy fans on the verges
Until the wind spins the wattles and gums
blurred, Impressionist versions of themselves
Released they bend obeisance
to the fury of lightening renting the clouds
In the end, a rainbow on the oil-slicked road
in lieu of any promise above
Effigy (Eleanor of Aquitaine)
She lies in ethereal light
cast through high
windows stained
with rubies, blues, the colour
of the sun and crucifixes
She reminds you to pray
intercede her way
through Purgatory
lying there comfortable
while she awaits Paradise
This Afterlife spent prone
in robes, white and blue
barbette swaddling chins
crowned with a ring of gold
cheeks scarred by time
Her head sits high on a pillow
plumped and raised
lips firm, fingers long
clasping an open book
lost in its pages for Eternity
© Jane Downing
Jane Downing’s poems have appeared at home in Australia and overseas including in Meanjin, Rabbit, Cordite, Canberra Times, Not Very Quiet, Social Alternatives, e.ratio, Last Stanza, Borderless, Best Australian Poems, and previously in Live Encounters. In 2025 she won the NSW Poetry Prize. Her collection, ‘When Figs Fly’ (Close-Up Books) was published in 2019.