Catchment Issue 6 Poetry of Place and my poem Threnody

 

CATCHMENT  Issue 6

FOREWORDEDITION 6: CATCHMENT POETRY OF PLACE

In compiling this sixth issue, our team at Catchment – Poetry of Place remains grateful to the Baw Baw Arts Alliance for continuing to give this digital poetry journal a home in its website.

Our ongoing quest is to provide opportunities to poets across Australia, whether new voices or longer-term contributors, in exploring various developing senses of place in their creative work.

Our feeling of pride extends to ways this project has already grown over the last half-year.

Baw Baw Art Alliance

Colleen Keating

Threnody

a tanka sequence

lament
from shocked silence
a song breaks out
voices trail away
into shallow breathing

holding each other
they bow over the flowers
a bee drones
sounds of heavy hearts
thrum in unison

seagulls stand
by an azure sea
Bondi Beach
the horizon mists up
a blur of sea and sky

at my window
a candle braves its light
into the dark
can flickering flames lighten
the long night?

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mulga dreaming

by COLLEEN KEATING

the solidarity of the ground
we rest on tonight
sky shot with silver
streamed with shooting stars
Is but the threshold for a mind to open

it is mulga country the Tanami
red dirt spinifex
and black silhouetted branches
haunt the horizon
here the world is given to itself

listen
how deep is the silence
deep as the darkest black hole of the sky

rest
count the stars
let the horizon centre our world

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Colleen Keating

Colleen Keating is an international award-winning Sydney poet and writes on Kur-ring-gai country.
Her poetry is published in journals and she has eight books of poetry.
She was the runner-up in the 2025 Ros Spencer WA Poetry Award.