Live Encounters Poetry & Writing July 2025
A Day Out in Suburbia, poem by Michael J Leach.
A Day Out in Suburbia
i.
sunrise
willie wagtails perched
along tennis nets
ii.
peak-hour traffic a hare makes it across the road
iii.
a ‘no dogs’ sign
at the reserve—
dogs
iv.
I drive down the road
a roo
hops down the footpath
v.
moonlit boardwalk
the same two seagulls
as last night
© Michael J Leach
Michael Leach lives and works on unceded Dja Dja Wurrung Country in his birthplace of Bendigo. Michael’s poems have appeared in journals such as Cordite Poetry Review, anthologies such as The Best Australian Science Writing 2024 (NewSouth Publishing, 2024), and his three poetry books: Chronicity (MPU, 2020), Natural Philosophies (RWP, 2022), and Rural Ecologies (ICOE Press, 2024). A fourth poetry book, Chords in the Soundscapes, is forthcoming from Ginninderra Press. Michael’s poems have been recognised in competitions: first place in the UniSA Mental Health and Wellbeing Poetry Competition 2015, commended in the Hippocrates Prize for Poetry and Medicine 2021, joint first place in the poetry category of the MSB Confidence Writing Competition 2022, longlisted for the poetry category of the MSB Confidence Writing Competition 2023, shortlisted for the poetry category of the Woollahra Digital Literary Award 2023, highly commended in and longlisted for the Liquid Amber Poetry Prize 2024, longlisted for the University of Canberra Health Poetry Prize 2024, and highly commended in the Hush Foundation Kindness in Healthcare Writing Prize 2024.