Light falls gold through the Ginko or maybe it is the leaves themselves in their seasonal drop
The lemon gum shrugs its skin into creases at the junctions of its boughs scenting the air fresh
The lull before the stab at Shakespeare performed in glade on lawn between the ponds
In the wings the bats unfurl their leather coats shake and rustle like the assembling players
No need to bring down the lights the earth’s turn will stage manage that well enough
The stars strut the stage outshone by their celestial counterparts await their audience’s hush
Jane Downing’s work has been published around the world including in Meanjin, Rabbit, Social Alternatives,Live Encounters, e.ratio, Last Stanza, and Best Australian Poems. Her collection is When Figs Fly (Close-Up Books, 2019).
PLEASE NOTE: ARTICLES CAN ONLY BE REPRODUCED IN OTHER SITES WITH DUE ACKNOWLEDGEMENT TO BORDERLESS JOURNAL
Some Japanese customs are pretty much common sense (no shoes in the house, no soap in the bath). Some, I have learned from my Japanese mother-in-law (do not store the broom in the entryway!). And others, I have learned from observation. For example, I’ve figured out that it’s best not to leave my wet umbrella unfurled when I poke it into a public umbrella stand, that I should back into a parking space, and that whenever I hand something over, it should be wrapped or in a bag.
Back in the day, department stores wrapped each purchased item individually and put them in a bag, so that once you got home, it was like a birthday or Christmas. In these ecologically-minded days, shop clerks don’t wrap things in paper, and I am more likely to carry my own cloth shopping bag. Naked gifts, however, are still a no-no.
Most souvenir shops in Japan give out multiple bags, so that if you buy five boxes of sweets for five different neighbors, each one can be presented in its own bag. This is a bit problematic when it comes to gifts purchased abroad. However, I now have a supply of sturdy, attractive paper bags with handles that I can use in a pinch. One of my friends said that she sometimes gets excited when she receives something in a bag from a big city boutique, thinking that they’ve opened a local branch. But typically, the bag’s origins don’t really matter, and the bag doesn’t have to match the gift.
I used to think that only new things were put into bags, but when I loaned a book or a dish or a piece of clothing to a Japanese friend, it was inevitably returned in a bag – like a present! I finally figured out that I should do the same. When I returned that yukata I borrowed for my daughter’s school festival, I tucked it into a paper bag emblazoned with the name of a Parisian shop. When I gave back a plastic container that had held food leftover from a party, I put it in a shiny bag from a popular local bakery. I brought a loaf of carrot cake to my neighbour in a sack from an upscale clothing store.
Yukata, a kimono for summer. From Public domain
Just the other day, I loaned a book to an Australian friend who has lived in Japan for many years. Because we are both foreigners in Japan, this one time I didn’t package up the book, but handed it over without cover, as I might have in the United States. I should have known better. When the book came back to me, it was in a crinkly paper bag decorated with strawberries, and tucked into another bag, from a pastry shop, printed with ribbons – a reminder that presentation counts.
From Public Domain
Suzanne Kamatawas born and raised in Grand Haven, Michigan. She now lives in Japan with her husband and two children. Her short stories, essays, articles and book reviews have appeared in over 100 publications. Her work has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize five times, and received a Special Mention in 2006. She is also a two-time winner of the All Nippon Airways/Wingspan Fiction Contest, winner of the Paris Book Festival, and winner of a SCBWI Magazine Merit Award.
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So the poets saved the word “love” for themselves. They had no other choice. Who’s better prepared to work with it?
Lawyers? Firemen? They have their own argot – contracts and ladders. But love? In poetry, it’s as common as the letter “e’.
There’s nothing formal in its usage. It’s raw. It’s emotion, pure and feral, the kind that howls at the moon, that kisses and claws, that burns in the belly and hisses in the bones.
Besides, love was being neglected. So the poets stepped in. Cops were too busy. Truckers had other roads to travel. But love -- that’s a poet’s beat. And they walk it daily.
A BOY AND A PEBBLE
A gold vault of ragwort in bloom, speckles the quivering pond with heart-shaped shadows of leaves.
Sky snoops through treetops. Its pale blue reflection makes surface contact where it can.
Young enough to despise stillness, I toss a pebble, disrupt the bright water.
Dragonflies disperse. Tiny fish schools swim to safety in all directions.
A disturbed snapping turtle rises up, like a splash in reverse, through the calm eye of outward rippling rings.
(I was an instigator then. Now I am a caretaker.) IN FLORIDA SCRUBLAND
twisted trunks of saw palmettos don’t know vertical from horizontal wilted look to the fronds and flowers but stubborn roots
dwarf oaks barely a man’s height with leaves dry and wrinkled as a farmer’s face
prickly pear cactus paddles of spiked green gripping together in parched soil
a scrub-jay pecks a skink slithers here and there in search of beetle larvae
patches of sand in dense thicket like the last stand of an ancient desert
looks like nothing should live or grow here
but never doubt living things
REGARDING THE HEAD
I marvel at heads, what’s inside the skull, under the cheeks, crammed within the jaw.
And there’s the ubiquitous nose of course, some more ubiquitous than others. And the ears, those worthless wings.
When I look at faces, I’m supposed to think beauty or ugly or something in between. But anatomy and physiognomy are more my fields. Forehead to jaw, it’s all about symmetry.
And having a head has got me thinking. Not bad for a mere carry-case for bones.
John Grey is an Australian poet, US resident, recently published in Midnight Mind, Novus and Abbey. His latest books, Bittersweet, Subject Matters and Between Two Fires, are available through Amazon. He has work upcoming in the MacGuffin, Touchstone and Willow Review.
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Title: My Summer of Cricket: Three Tests,One Fan and Decades of Stories
Author: Nikhil Kulkarni
Chapter 4
NEW YEAR’S TEST/PINK TEST, SYDNEY
Days 0 and 1
I’ve never been good at packing, or planning my time well when it comes to packing for trips. For someone who prides himself on colour-coded Google calendar entries and spreadsheet grocery lists, there’s something about stuffing a suitcase that makes me irrationally confident until it’s far too late. Which is how I found myself, on 2 January, standing in my living room with three open bags, a half-zipped duffel and no idea where my power bank was. My flight to India was on 8 January, which was just one day after the Sydney Test wrapped up, and it was starting in less than twenty-four hours. I had somehow left everything till now.
I don’t know if it was the festive lull after New Year’s, or the post-Melbourne daze still swirling in my head, but the realisation hit like a short ball I never saw coming. This wasn’t just a regular trip back home. This time, I was planning to stay for a while. A good month, in fact. Back to my hometown in Karnataka to see family, to catch up with people I’d kept meaning to visit. Which meant not just packing clothes, but packing with purpose – gifts, clothes, souvenirs I spent wayyy too much money on at the MCG, all the good stuff. I panicked a little. Then I panicked a lot. And then, in true form, I threw whatever I could find into the bags, convinced I’d sort it out somehow. Little did I know then that I’d have plenty of time to repack everything.
But, even as I was frantically shoving things into suitcases, my mind kept drifting to the match. This one felt different. Not because of the venue, though. The Sydney Cricket Ground (SCG) wasn’t some unfamiliar pilgrimage. I’d been there more times than I could count. In fact, it’s kind of a family tradition at this point to take the kids to watch WBBL (Women’s Big Bash League) matches and at least one day of the Pink Test every year. So, I knew this ground. I knew where the good coffee was, where the shade started creeping by the second session, and which section’s crowd always went too hard too early. But somehow, this didn’t feel routine. It felt big.
Part of it was the stakes. After four gripping Tests, Australia was on the cusp of winning the series, leading at 2–1. If India won, the series tied and the Border–Gavaskar Trophy stayed with them, as it had for the last eight years. But if Australia won, or even managed to draw? They’d take the cup back. That possibility had everyone on edge. And despite the chaos around me, I couldn’t help but feel the buzz of it too.
And then, of course, there was the familiar question I never quite knew how to answer: who was I even supporting? Born in India, citizen of Australia. Proud of my Indian heritage and equally proud of the Australian values. I’d cheered for Kohli’s centuries and Cummins’s yorkers with equal joy. So I did what I always do – I leaned into the game. I wasn’t there to take sides. I just wanted to see how it all played out.
The next day, I woke up early. Though I always wake up around the same time, this morning felt less like discipline and more like pre-match electricity. It was the kind of early where you don’t even need an alarm because your brain has already sprinted ahead, mentally packing sunscreen, triple-checking ticket PDFs, and wondering whether the security staff will let you bring in homemade sandwiches (they do).
Luckily, one part of the plan had been sorted well in advance: parking. Now, this is where I must pause and offer a public service announcement to all future Sydney cricket enthusiasts, especially the ones who think it’s a good idea to just find a spot on the day of the match or brave the 40-kilometre public transport haul from the outer suburbs.
Don’t do that. Book your parking at the QVB with Wilson Parking.
Book it early. Like, four days early. You’ll lock in a spot right in the middle of the city for what is basically loose change compared to sameday rates. Plus, you’re walking distance from an actual toilet and decent coffee. Then, hop on the light rail and enjoy the glorious fifteen-minute tram ride to Moore Park with no transfers, no platform guessing and no train-station drama. It’s the Test match equivalent of finding a hundred-dollar note in your old jeans. Thank me later.
By the time I’d parked, trammed and emerged into the growing pink tide outside the SCG, I felt oddly calm. Everything had worked. My bag was light, my timing was perfect and I still had sunscreen in my hand. I pumped my chest and walked like a man with a plan. And this plan was a little more than just watching the match, I was attending a breakfast hosted by the Primary Club of Australia.
Now, I hadn’t heard of the Primary Club of Australia until I got the invite, and discovering them felt like one of those serendipitous gifts this summer kept offering. Their mission is beautifully simple: every time a professional cricketer gets out for a duck, members donate to support athletes with disabilities. That’s it. It’s the kind of idea that slips under the radar, but once you hear it, you can’t stop thinking about how right it feels. Humble, purposeful, and very cricket.
The breakfast itself was held on the morning of Day 1 of the Sydney Test, and it’s a bit of a tradition at the SCG. Irfan Malik, who we met earlier, had been hearing about my cricket travels and kindly offered me an invite. AIBC was one of the partners for the event. It was a wonderful New Year’s gift and I was very excited to attend the breakfast event.
Inside, it was a mix of nostalgia and networking. There were white tablecloths, polite applause and a menu that could have been lifted straight from a five-star hotel buffet. But the heart of the morning was a panel discussion titled State of the Game, featuring Mark Taylor, Ed Cowan and Cricinfo editor Andrew McGlashan. It wasn’t just small talk or highlight reels, they offered frank insights on where the game stood, what was working, and what needed fixing. Taylor brought his statesman-like calm, Cowan was thoughtful and reflective, and McGlashan added the sharp edge of someone who watches the sport with both love and scrutiny. While there was a certain heft and seriousness to the conversation, it was also very refreshing and natural. You could see that everyone on the panel and in the room in general was engaged and excited about the game ahead.
Somewhere between the eggs Benedict and the raffle for Pat Cummins’s signed bat, I found myself genuinely moved by what the Primary Club was doing. It was a reminder that cricket isn’t only about bat and ball. It’s about connection and causes that quietly build momentum in the background while the spotlight stays on the field. I signed up as a member right at the event thanks to the QR codes conveniently placed at every table. Who would’ve thought QR codes, a mechanism invented in Japan for labelling auto parts, would become such a ubiquitous part of our lives!
It turned out my neighbour at the table was Mohit Kumar, a local councillor I’d seen at other events. We had a brief chat about two things we had in common: cricket and Blacktown (our local council), and then I made my way to the book sales counter. There they were: signed copies of Pat Cummins’s autobiography. The book had been on my reading list for a while and these were of course signed copies! I asked how many they’d let one person buy because I didn’t want to be that guy sweeping the whole pile. They had a small limit per guest, which made sense. I picked up the maximum allowed. Some for me, some for a few people back in India who’d know exactly why this mattered. Because if there’s one thing I’ve learned, it’s that cricket books make excellent surprise gifts, especially when they’re signed. And even more so when you can hand one over with a casual, ‘Oh, it’s nothing. Just something I picked up at breakfast with Mark Taylor.
ABOUT THE BOOK:
From a village in North Karnataka in India to the bright lights of Sydney, Nikhil has lived and breathed the inevitable highs and lows that come with being a cricket fan.
From listening to early morning radio commentaries to witnessing Sachin Tendulkar’s final match, Nikhil insists that every hour he was engrossed in watching, listening to and thinking about cricket was time well spent. This dedication culminated in the summer of 2024-25, when he undertook a personal pilgrimage to Brisbane, Melbourne and Sydney, attending every single match day of the ‘2024–25 India vs. Australia Border- Gavaskar Trophy’ test series. The book traces Kulkarni’s devotion to the sport over the last three decades where he meets fascinating people, explores new cities and forges new, unforgettable memories. To read My Summer of Cricket is to understand that cricket is more than a game – it’s a connection between the peoples of different countries, a vehicle for supporting meaningful causes, and a way to bridge generations.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Nikhil Kulkarni is a Sydney-based tech leader, recognised community voice, and lifelong cricket tragic who has followed the game across India and Australia for more than three decades. An avid quizzer with a love for puns, he and his wife are raising two daughters in a home that celebrates both Indian heritage and Australian values.
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Narrative by Meredith Stephens: Photographs by Alan Noble
Boat which took the author and her husband to Mekong Delta
We alighted from the ferry and disembarked at a small island in the Mekong Delta. Our Vietnamese guide had promised us that we could witness how local people lived. After walking along a trail, we were ushered into a small boat with a local lady at the rear who would row us down the river. We stepped into the back of the boat and another couple stepped into the front.
“Would you mind taking a photo of us?” asked a woman with a bright smile and an energetic voice. I could hear she was English. Then the four of us started bantering and I detected that her partner was English too.
Next, we hopped off the boat and were treated to the chance to hold a cobra, sample local delicacies, and listen to the villagers’ musical performance. The next day we were taken to a restaurant where you could make your own seafood pancakes. Just before lunch, we were given the opportunity to cycle along a nearby path. Those of our group who wished to cycle selected a bicycle. I chose one and headed to the path. Then I looked ahead of me and realised that the English woman’s bike was the wrong size for her.
Cycling tour of the village
“Would you like to swap bicycles? Mine is too large and yours seems to be too small.”
She nodded. We swapped bicycles and seemed to find the perfect match. Our tour guide gave the signal and off we went. After a few kilometres, he signaled to stop so the group would stay together. I found myself at the front of the group and turned around to see the English woman immediately behind.
“I commuted to work by bike for twenty years,” I explained, surprised to be the one who had to stop so the others could catch up.
“I was in Japan. Japan is much friendlier to cyclists. The traffic is slower, and the roads narrower. It’s easier than driving, at least for short distances.”
She nodded. “They cycle a lot in Amsterdam. Also in Cambridge, where I lived for three years.”
I didn’t want to ask too many personal questions of this woman I had only just met, but I was curious. I wondered if she had studied at Cambridge University. Instead of being nosy, I added a few comments about Cambridge.
“We visited there recently. We stayed on the outskirts, and walked in. We had to walk through a park where there were cows grazing with bells around their necks. I much prefer Cambridge to Oxford.”
“Yes, it’s smaller. But Oxford is pretty good too!” she added.
By then the other cyclists had caught up. We continued along the path and then returned for lunch. We resumed the tour and were dropped off back in Ho Chi Minh City.
“Where can we store our luggage?” Alex asked her.
“Here at the tourist agency. We’ll leave ours there while we pop into the markets to get Ian a new backpack. His is broken.”
“Thanks for the tip. By the way, do you have an email address so we can exchange photos?”
“Sure. Where are you heading next?” she asked.
“Hoi An,” she replied.
“Oh! We are going there too. We are doing a cooking class. Would you like to join us?” offered Alex.
“Sure! Send us the link.”
We parted ways.
“See you in Hoi An,” I said, hoping that we could meet again.
The English woman was so easy to talk to, so quick to respond, and pick up on any nuance. I’d already decided that she must be a therapist. I had been trained since early adulthood not to ask people what they did for a living. It wasn’t fair to allow your knowledge of their career success to determine your assessment of them. But I admit to being curious. If she had studied at Cambridge, what career had followed?
Alex and I caught a sleeper train to Hoi An. There we found generously proportioned historic buildings. However, there were too many tourists in Hoi An, people like us. We walked around the town and felt overwhelmed. We could barely move down the street without bumping into other tourists.
Night trainTrain station
The next day Alex texted the English woman. He must have been just as eager to meet the couple again as I was.
“Sorry, your cooking class was full. We booked another one. How about drinks this evening?” she replied.
Alex accepted. That evening we made our way to the bar she had suggested. They stood up and hugged us.
“I’m Jill* by the way. And this is Ian*.”
“I’m Alex, and this is Merri.”
We ordered a gin and tonic. They were drinking beer.
“Since we were meeting you today, we thought we’d better order a gin and tonic,” I explained. This drink brought back memories of England.
After we had sipped our drinks, Alex broached the question that was on my mind.
“So, what do you do when you’re not touring in Vietnam?” he asked.
“I write historical fiction. Ian has retired. When the children were younger, he supported me, but now it’s my turn to support him.”
I was beside myself with excitement. If you asked me which profession intrigued me most, I would have said a writer. I have little inclination to meet actors, politicians, astronauts, rocket scientists, or billionaires, but I certainly would like to meet writers (not to mention musicians). For the next couple of hours, Jill shared her experience of writing, and Alex and I shared our experiences of sailing. I was so excited that I lost my appetite and only nibbled a few snacks at the end of the evening. They told us that they lived in a nearly three-hundred-year-old house in Somerset*, one of my favourite places in the UK.
“Just a warning. We will visit,” Alex added.
“Certainly!” replied Jill.
“And please come sailing with us when our boat is ready!” I urged.
We parted company, and I floated all the way back to the hotel. I looked up her many books online and resolved to read her latest one as soon as I could.
A day later, Alex and I caught another sleeper to Hanoi. It was so pleasant rolling along the tracks that I was lulled to sleep as soon as I lay down. I informed Alex that when we returned to Adelaide, I needed a sleep machine that mimicked the motion of rolling along the tracks and provided the accompanying background noise.
When we exited the station a throng of taxi drivers approached us to offer us rides. We had been advised that it is more secure and economical to use the local ride called Grab[1]. I shielded Alex from one driver that persisted in following him around too closely. I positioned myself between Alex and the driver with my back to the driver. Then we looked over and saw a couple laden with suitcases and eyes glued to their phones. The husband made eye contact with me and gave an exaggerated Gallic shrug and I immediately knew they were French. They looked desperate, and I knew I had to put my rusty French to practice. Years of study at the Alliance Francaise did not equip me to use my French in context. French speakers tended to switch to English as soon as I made my opening gambit in French. This was either because my English accent was too strong, or the French speakers wanted to practice their English. However, this time, the urgency of the situation prompted me to use my French.
“Have you tried to use Grab? It’s less expensive,” I informed them.
“We couldn’t install it. We’re trying to contact the hotel. They were meant to pick us up.”
Her husband was persevering on the phone.
“We’re meant to be going home tomorrow,” the wife informed me. “But our flight has been cancelled.”
“Because of the…,” I offered, unable to quickly find the words for ‘Middle East conflict’.
“Because of the…,” she confirmed. She knew what I meant.
“We were here for our anniversaire,” she explained.
I knew that ‘birthday’ is ‘anniversaire’ in French, but as I was scrambling to communicate, I temporarily assumed that it meant its false friend, anniversary.
“How many years?” I asked.
“69 and 64,” she explained.
Whoops! She must have meant birthday. I pointed to Alex. “He’s ten weeks older than me,” I added.
She laughed and then switched to English.
‘Where are you from?” she asked.
She must have known we were anglophones, but not which anglophone country we came from.
“Australia,” I replied.
She was very surprised to hear this. I continued to scramble to make meaningful conversation, sacrificing precision for getting the words out quickly.
“We come from a town that no-one has heard of,” I added in exaggeration, reverting to French. “Our city Adelaide often gets left out when visiting performers and VIPs come to Australia.”
She laughed again. Then Alex saw on his phone that our Grab ride had arrived. We picked up our bags and exited the station.
Alex decided to join in in French.
“Bonne chance,” he said, hoping they would soon find their transport.
“Bon voyage,” she replied.
“Bon voyage,” I echoed.
I felt sorry and guilty as we boarded our Grab outside the station.
The third serendipitous encounter was on our boat tour in Lan Ha Bay. After spending the night on a small cruise ship, we boarded a dinghy to take us to the rowing boats which were to take us to the caves.
Our tour consisted of two Indian couples, two Danish girls, three Russian couples, and a young Australian family of four from the east coast. Each rowing boat seated eight. As Alex and I were lining up to board we were directed to the boat with the three glamorous young Russian couples. I was a bit concerned about how we would converse in the boat. Sitting in silence would be awkward. The only Russian I knew were those words from the media in the ‘80s, perestroika and glasnost. They wouldn’t get us far because these Russians would be too young to remember the times when these words were used. Alex and I averted our gaze, and the tour guide gave up trying to persuade us to board the boat. We turned around and saw the young Australian family lining up behind us. We smiled at them.
“Aussies!” I exclaimed. We had been deprived of conversation with our compatriots for quite a few days.
The six of us hopped in the rowing boat and were taken inside the stunning Lan Ha Bay. I am not sure that our conversation with our compatriots amounted to much, but it was animated and fun, and I hardly had the time to take in the wonderful bay.
Lan Ha Bay
Seeing the sights in other countries is both a privilege and an enormous treat. What is just as exciting is meeting locals, and the random, sometimes fleeting, and yet meaningful encounters with fellow tourists. We may meet Jill and Ian again. We will never meet the French couple again and don’t even know their names. We just hope they made it to their hotel and then safely back to France. We probably won’t meet the young Australian family again either. The east coast is just too far away. Nonetheless, we have been enriched by the knowledge shared by our kind, enthusiastic and energetic Vietnamese tour guides, and the unexpected encounters with fellow tourists trying to navigate this unique culture together.
* Some names have been changed.
[1] A Singaporean company that caters all over Southeast Asia
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Meredith Stephens is an applied linguist from South Australia. Her recent work has appeared in Syncopation Literary Journal, Continue the Voice, Micking Owl Roost blog, The Font – A Literary Journal for Language Teachers, and Mind, Brain & Education Think Tank. In 2024, her story Safari was chosen as the Editor’s Choice for the June edition of All Your Stories.
PLEASE NOTE: ARTICLES CAN ONLY BE REPRODUCED IN OTHER SITES WITH DUE ACKNOWLEDGEMENT TO BORDERLESS JOURNAL
Studio flat. Mattress, futon, floor. Could we have stayed there forever, content? No reply. It measured roughly the size of a kennel. She barked -- “Woof.” But she giggled when she said it.
Now we sleep in a proper bed, sprung coils, fitted sheets, a home with walls that favour silence over the fights and lovemaking of next-door neighbours.
And the refrigerator fits more than beer and pizza slices. We’ve enough stove to cook an entire meal. But sometimes, she stirs honey into tea, and the spoon’s clink is a memory of rain on that single-pane window.
We don’t speak of that old apartment. But sometimes, lying back and thinking of nothing, I can hear the echo of her bark -- not grief, not joy –- just the sound of a life small enough for two.
THE BOY WHO FELL THROUGH THE ICE
What does it mean to stagger from the old pond, mouth smudged, blue eyes cratered, nostrils red?
The hometown has traded soul for shingles. A strip mall fronts our watery playground now. The wire that fences it is a trellis for weeds.
And you who once were too late for saving, now clutch soil in ever-defiant handfuls.
Winter holds you still. You rise -- a revenant carved from frost and a memory of your flailing body as seen from far above.
This is no repeat of our childhood. Then, you didn’t return. Now, you crawl past the despair.
I marvel at your instinct -- how you chase the moment beyond meaning to what breathes on the other side. I want that too. To know death as merely vessel-- something we sail in when the ice thins.
THE GIANT
He was at the birthday party, a shadow of immense proportions. Streams trembled. Balloons lost their moorings. The cake sank. Giggles stuck in many a craw.
He stood apart as the children shrieked and scattered. In the swimming pool’s blue eye he was a reflection, not a swimmer.
He waited. Not for flat cake, not for games, but for the slow growth of girls into something more dangerous.
He would guard her, then become the thing she’d need guarding from.
John Grey is an Australian poet, US resident, recently published in Shift, Trampoline and Flights. His latest books — Bittersweet, Subject Matters and Between Two Fires — are available through Amazon. He has work upcoming in Levitate, White Wall Review and Willow Review.
PLEASE NOTE: ARTICLES CAN ONLY BE REPRODUCED IN OTHER SITES WITH DUE ACKNOWLEDGEMENT TO BORDERLESS JOURNAL
The numbers arrived without ceremony: a small column of figures, neat and confident, delivered through a screen that assumed fluency. There was no preamble, no invitation to feel anything about them. They simply existed—self-contained, conclusive. I stared at them longer than necessary, as though attention itself might persuade them to say something more.
I had been trained to trust measurement. To believe that what can be counted is what can be known, that precision is a form of care. Science has given us extraordinary clarity—the age of the universe, the speed of light, the composition of distant stars. It reduces the world to units small enough to hold without trembling. And yet, faced with those figures, something loosened. Not doubt exactly, but space.
Outside the window, trees moved according to rhythms that resisted instruction. The wind shifted, paused, resumed. Nothing announced itself. Nothing asked to be improved. I noticed this only because the numbers left room for it. They explained something, certainly—but not the sensation of standing there, or the quiet pull of attending to what did not ask to be solved.
The figures were accurate. The method sound. Still, they felt incomplete—not because they lacked information, but because they stopped where experience continued. They could describe a condition, but not what it felt like to inhabit it, or how knowledge settles unevenly into a day.
I began to notice how often I reached for numbers for reassurance. Steps counted. Hours logged. Probabilities consulted. Each promised orientation, a sense of being located within something stable. Yet the more faithfully I checked them, the more sharply I felt what they could not carry: anticipation, curiosity, the pleasure of patterns that were alive rather than abstracted.
The trees continued their unsystematic movement. No pattern held. Nothing corrected itself. They offered no explanation, only presence. Whatever I was leaning toward did not arrive as conclusion. It arrived as attention.
My body seemed to understand this before I did. Breath shifted. Awareness sharpened. These responses did not contradict what the numbers said; they existed alongside them—gathered without instruments, held without proof.
By evening, the figures had settled into their proper place—neither dismissed nor revered. What lingered was the act of noticing: the difference between explanation and understanding, between knowing the parameters of a situation and standing inside it.
Later, I returned to the window. The trees were still there, indifferent to coherence. Light moved across them without emphasis or instruction. It required very little of me—not judgment, not conclusion, only presence.
Some kinds of knowledge arrive complete. Others unfold slowly, through attention. The numbers gave me the first. The rest asked only that I stay.
Tamara-Lee Brereton-Karabetsos is an Australian writer working across poetry and lyric non-fiction, exploring perception, science, and the spaces where language meets what cannot be measured.
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Seek out the spark. Silver-scales flicker in copper dusk, belly-deep in shallows. A fish shimmies just within my gaze, unaware of eyes across the bank. Hands twitch with eagerness and line.
One dart crisscrosses another. One swish and it vanishes, leaving the kind of unwrinkled ripple that only a ghost could make.
Not beautiful, not holy either, but glows in its ignorance, it wears shimmer like an evening dress, dances as if it knows no predator, as if the hook is its own instinct and not that metal thing bobbing in the water.
LANDS OF DROUGHT
If only the magpies and cockatoos pitched in with the seeding, instead of stealing the last of the barley like feathered masked bandits.
The fields stretch wide, sadly sown, sunburnt ledger of solitary labour. And my silos are as hollow as a bird’s bones.
Summer lays claim and offers nothing. A long, dry siege where dreams peek out between nightmare’s teeth. Even the soil knows -- it clumps in my palm like the ghost of work. I’m its servant. It’s retired.
Each day arrives full as an empty drum: from end to end, absurd rows of nothing. I’m a farmer — no, a resident of dust. A scarecrow by trade: sticks in a hand-me-down shirt, some straw stitched at haste.
IN A STEEL TOWN
Noise factories churn out red-hot steel. Chimneys feed the air. The sky nibbles on the ash. Clouds swallow hard.
Smog coats the lungs with slag heaps for illustration.
Eyes burn. Everything tastes of iron and carbon.
Some say the money’s good. But no one knows what’s good about it.
From Public Domain
John Grey is an Australian poet, US resident, recently published in Shift, Trampoline and Flights. His latest books — Bittersweet, Subject Matters and Between Two Fires — are available through Amazon. He has work upcoming in Levitate, White Wall Review and Willow Review.
PLEASE NOTE: ARTICLES CAN ONLY BE REPRODUCED IN OTHER SITES WITH DUE ACKNOWLEDGEMENT TO BORDERLESS JOURNAL
“Which part of India did your people come from?” asked the Tamil tour guide during our last trip to Chennai.
“I know my forefathers came from Tamil Nadu, but, sorry can’t tell you which part of Tamil Nadu or village they came from,” I told him in Tamil. “I am a third generation Malaysian Indian. We lost touch with all the relatives back home.”
“Your Tamil is very good for someone out of this country. Judging from way you speak, you could pass off for someone from Thanjavur!” he went on.
“People from Malaysia have mostly left their original accent and have developed new ones with Malay and Chinese words in theirs, so you cannot pigeonhole them to any region in India anymore.” I replied.
In a philosophical tone, he paused, then said, “I am here in Chennai, and you are there in Malaysia, and the only thing that connects us is the Tamil language.”
Of course, there is the DNA that unites us, but the bond that draws us to India is independent of the language spoken or written.
Our little conversation reminded me of the 1980s music video ‘Down Under’ by the Australian rock band, Men at Work. In that scene, the singer goes around the world, and everyone recognises him with his characteristic Aussie mannerisms. “Do you come from a land Down Under?” is their first response.
My grandparents and parents believed that, despite moving away from their homeland due to increasingly hostile living conditions, it was necessary to pass down their culture and language. Perhaps it was the only language they knew. They did not turn their backs on Tamil Nadu, nor let their offspring immerse themselves solely in the local culture. They had no anger towards their country. They did not turn their backs on her. They understood their motherland was going through difficult times and that tides would eventually change. Maybe they thought that one day their descendants would return and boast about how their princes of the soil had succeeded in a distant land, even while still holding onto their ancestral roots – the mother tongue.
It looks like the sun has risen, and the country has awakened from her long slumber, continuing to pursue what she stopped in her glorious past. Even her children, who have spread across all corners of the Earth, have made her proud.
For the rest of my trip, I conversed in Tamil, checked into a four-star hotel, and even conducted transactions at a bank counter. At first glance, I am sure they could tell I was not local, with liberal use of the word ‘lah’[1] in my sentences and the distinctive sing-song manner Malaysians use when speaking Tamil, it seems. The Malaysians are also described as extremely courteous, unlike the locals there.
[1]Lah is a phrase used by Malaysians and Singaporeans in local parlance
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Farouk Gulsara is a daytime healer and a writer by night. After developing his left side of his brain almost half his lifetime, this johnny-come-lately decided to stimulate the non-dominant part of his remaining half. An author of two non-fiction books, Inside the twisted mind of Rifle Range Boy and Real Lessons from Reel Life, he writes regularly in his blog, Rifle Range Boy.
PLEASE NOTE: ARTICLES CAN ONLY BE REPRODUCED IN OTHER SITES WITH DUE ACKNOWLEDGEMENT TO BORDERLESS JOURNAL
Come now, little frightened one. That twinge is all you’ll feel as death tears you from the desiccated husk that lingers in your carapace. Then it’s done and all is light. You are floating now above your shell. You seem surprised I hover, spreading protection of bright wings as you stare down at your remnant. There is nothing you should fear as I reach to catch you, shielding you from Valkyries and other predatory fowl circling in hope that you will stray into the bardo space where you become their choice reptilian feast of sorrow. Come closer now and let me wrap my webbed, clawed feet around you as I bear you up to where you swim, with myriad freshwater turtle souls, in the river of light. Some you may recognise: your mother, who passed over soon after she laid your clutch. Several of her hatchlings swim in this bright stream in which the golden minnows jump: Leonardo, Donatello, Michelangelo. Here it’s always summertime. You will remember me as Raphael, the Terrapin of Seraphim. You may hear Ella Fitzturtle ‘rise up singing’ to Gershwin’s melody ‘as I spread my wings and take to the sky.’
Andrew Leggett is an Australian author of fiction, poetry, interdisciplinary academic papers, reviews and songs. His latest collection of poetry Losing Touch was published by Ginninderra Press in 2022. His fiction collection In Dreams and Other Stories will be published by Ginninderra Press in 2026.
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PLEASE NOTE: ARTICLES CAN ONLY BE REPRODUCED IN OTHER SITES WITH DUE ACKNOWLEDGEMENT TO BORDERLESS JOURNAL.
