Live Encounters Poetry & Writing February 2026.
A Need for Gentle Verbs, poem by Patricia Sykes.
A Need for Gentle Verbs
After ferocities of loss
some of the bushfires
still burning, the setting sun
a fireball, hazed and hazing,
casualties rising by the hour
wildlife, domestic herds,
homes, livelihoods
the brutalised earth
in the grip of heat’s mirage
struggles to open its lungs
nights become sleepless
packed treasures
wait by the door
for evacuation orders
while helicopters prowl
the forest canopy
for telltale smoke;
mornings become a gift
when beneath my feet
the foothills continue
to breath gently, kindly
© Patricia Sykes
Patricia Sykes is a poet and librettist. Her poems and collections have received various awards, including the Newcastle Poetry Prize, John Shaw Neilson award and the Tom Howard Poetry Prize. She has read her work widely and it has featured on ABC radio programs Poetica and The Spirit of Things. Her collaborations with composer Liza Lim have been performed in Brisbane, Melbourne, Sydney, Paris, Germany, Russia, New York and the UK. She was Asialink Writer in Residence, Malaysia, 2006. A selection of her poems was published in an English/Chinese edition by Flying Island Books in 2017. A song cycle composed by Andrew Aronowicz, based on her collection The Abbotsford Mysteries, premiered at The Abbotsford Convent Melbourne — now an arts precinct — in 2019. A podcast of this work is available on various platforms.