Marilyn Humbert

Haven

Late autumn 2021.  The many months of domestic movement restrictions and isolation are starting to ease in Australia. Finally, we are able to travel across state borders more easily and make camp beside the Murray River on the Victorian side. Because of good autumn rains, the river is running fast.  It’s muddy coloured but clear enough I can see the bottom in the shallows. I amble along a shingle of small pebbles and larger sand grains which crunch and give beneath my feet.  Sunlight sparkles on current ripples around snags of fallen timber. 

river sand washed
clean by rain and flood
I leave behind
city covid hotspots . . .
my choice, this isolation

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About the Author

Marilyn Humbert lives in the Northern suburbs of Sydney NSW Australia. Her tanka and haiku appear in international and Australian journals, anthologies, and online. Her free-verse poems have been awarded prizes in competitions, published online and in anthologies.