hearth 

Featured in

  • Published 20250204
  • ISBN: 978-1-923213-04-3
  • Extent: 196 pp
  • Paperback, ebook. PDF

yes, one day, finally, it will all fall away 

like all dead things 

we will sit again by the campfire 

story illuminating the fall of empire 


one day 

again 

we will choose enough 

lean away from more 

pull our hands from its heat 

lean 

wandunban nguliindu

always 

into the earth 

quickening its molten heart

we will draw from there

unflinching

our song 

carry it 

on feathered feet 

to deepest country 

cast it toward the shore


one day again

mudhunda

you will thrum  

and our song 

will bear witness 

wandhandja wandhanja mardin-yimba 

blak witness of all time 


One day one day one day.


*******

wandunban nguliindu– our customary/spiritual way of being 

mudhunda – the name I have given to so called Australia, meaning the song Country

wandhanja wandhanja – everywhen

mardin – the people

yiimba – hear listen and think 

‘One day one day one day.’ – With permission from A Language of Limbs by Dylin Hardcastle 

Share article

About the author

Cheryl Leavy

Cheryl Leavy writes non-fiction, poetry and children’s literature. Her first children’s book, Yanga Mother, was published by UQP in 2024. She has been awarded...

More from this edition

The blue room

FictionMum did not tell us that Sabina had tried to kill herself. She said that she was unwell, and because she was unmarried and her children lived interstate Sabina would stay with us while she convalesced. We figured it out after she arrived; she did not appear sick, but lively and plump. Nor was there any regularity to her medical appointments. Though Phoebe was irritated that she would have to share her bathroom we found the situation morbidly glamorous, the sick woman with the elegant name whose stay would end with recovery or its opposite. So many sibilant words: suicide, convalescence, Sabina. Having no knowledge of death or any conviction we would ever die, suicide seemed tinged with romance. That Sabina lived confirmed our belief that death was not serious.

Steering upriver

Non-fictionAt dawn I cross the bridge, Missouri to Iowa, and turn down the gravel drive. Though I’m different now, this place is the same as it always is this time of year: the sun glowing red over the paddock next door, the grass not yet green, the maple stark. I go away, come back again, and home is like a photograph where time winds back, slows into stasis; where the carpet has changed, but the dishes have not, the cookbooks have not, the piano and artwork and bath towels have not. Here, I can be a child again, my best self, briefly. I hold on to this moment for as long as I can, because too soon I’ll remember how disobedient I am, how bossy and domineering, how I slammed my door until Dad took it off its hinges, how soap tastes in my mouth, how I pushed on these walls until they subsided.

Notes from a Sunshine City

GR OnlineI feel like our collective relationships with The House™ as a motif changed so much during that time; the housing crisis, lockdown and climate apocalypse were looming large all at once. Personally, I developed this kind of bizarre voyeuristic relationship with the suburbs and houses I passed on my mandated mental-health walks.

Stay up to date with the latest, news, articles and special offers from Griffith Review.