Live Encounters Poetry & Writing January 2026.
Pausing together, poems by Stephanie Green.
Pausing together
In the evening we walk together
Currawongs tracing our progress
past the old grey out-buildings
where the residue of old things is stored
along the yellow grass track
pressed flat by footfalls
to the slender river cove.
We pause to take it into ourselves
that place we already know
sifting white sand between fingers
abating our loneliness among singing Tamarisks
their soft needles strumming the wishing wind
wondering how the giant boulders above us
so thickly outlined in charcoal
can have rested there for so long.
We walk on beside the fast brown river
bending through tangled branches.
You say we’ll try to do better
lifting your feet high to avoid hidden dangers
careful to step where sandy soil is already exposed.
I say we’ve come further than intended
but it isn’t too late yet to return.
At some point we hear laughter up ahead.
On the border of witnessing
In this last high stony place
where moths and worms eat up the past
not everything flows as we expect.
Hunger for what we can’t possess
burns our stomachs.
Below, all the fires have died out.
Turbines stilled.
Melaleuca trees emptied.
Acacia seeds long since blown away.
Green life edging into dust.
No dogs bark under orange stars.
No crying sheep nudge us awake.
Only sharp-beaked crows come to gloat
sleek swooping close to steal our water.
This is the last place we come to
this bare, lonely witnessing
where we can only be new again
rewrought with the iron of unbelonging.
We searched for proof that ideas matter
for words to salve wounds
but the onslaught was too loud and fierce
for any ordinary kind of listening.
Today the burnt valley is still
and these caverns where we dwell
their sweet streams and easeful crevices
all that’s left to us
may be our graves.
Against Wishing
This morning the unknown is a wide chasm
and I must climb down its rocky side
to an invisible forest floor.
Somewhere there I might find
a gingerbread hut, or three pointed wizards
or Baba Yaga ready to turn me to stone.
Somewhere there, I might find
a white elk, or a white horse
or a slim child with a magical smile
who leads me to a distant castle.
But even though I have a magic key
hidden in the sole of my left shoe
I already know that magnificent castle
will never feel to me like home.
So, what if I don’t follow the child?
What if I ride the horse
to the other side of the chasm?
And what if I begin to climb up
measuring each ledge and fissure with my toes
hoping the birds will catch me if I fall?
© Stephanie Green
Stephanie Green has been widely published in Australian and international journals such as Meniscus, StylusLit, Axon, TEXT, and Live Encounters, and anthologies, including Australian Poetry Collaboration (Meuse, 2025), Pratik: Fire and Rain (APWT/Nirala, 2023) and The Anthology of Australian Prose Poetry (MUP 2020). Her most recent collection is Seams of Repair (Calanthe, 2023). Her books also include a collection of prose poems, Breathing in Stormy Seasons (Recent Work Press, 2019), and selected short fiction, Too Much Too Soon (Pandanus, 2006). She is an Adjunct Senior Lecturer with Griffith University.