Limbo
by Isobel Robson, Ivanhoe Girls’ Grammar School
Finalist, Years 11 – 12, written poetry
The light is slowly fading
and the halos on the edges of the leaves are returning to their green crowns,
the beauty assuming the temporary once again
like it always has
like it would ever choose to become permanent
and allow me to exist in the comfort of this corner in time,
where the sun’s low angle casts its sails on the apple tree outside
and particles dance playfully in streams of its light.
Ethereal—
physical,
I remember, focusing on the cyclist and that car
and those people laughing loudly in the quiet walking past.
That they are not made of dust or dreams, but of flesh and blood
and that outside this window—a whole world spins
hoping that one day its tenants will smell the fire burning
and right their sins
to serve their own best purpose
And perhaps across its surface another girl is stuck in limbo,
watching the tableau of her front yard shrink and grow
perhaps longing for a greater purpose than any blue light could show
and reaching for a world where feelings are broadcast
through the whole of the human body,
and pummelling the metal cities,
a drumming of change ripples silver skyscrapers like mercury.
Yet—like always she is brought down kneeling,
at the feet of that all-encompassing feeling,
brought down to a dreaming and a desire for more.
Now the room has darkened,
the light faded in the time of my thoughts,
and outside, the leaves are the most ordinary green—
because beauty is temporary, after all.
Want to read more poems? Explore the other Years 11 – 12 finalists.