Departures & Arrivals

By Pete Shmigel

“Departures & Arrivals” is a haiku and poetry collection by a voluntary migrant born to forced migrants. It’s about different places and different states, and the search for sense through the senses.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Pete Shmigel
• Release date: Mar 2, 2015
• ISBN: 9781310906497

Book preview

For my family—who count.

Things from the heart don’t have an explanation.

—Pope Francis

Table of Contents

Departures & Arrivals

Dedication

Epigraph

(here)

possums on

walking around

night-time trainyard

nylon broom

Municipal pool

Hunts Creek

Near Mrs Macquarie’s Chair

Easter

Woy Woy

Parramatta ferry

Meadowbank

ferry fidget

egrets on

freighter’s deckhands

Near Camelia

Hawkesbury

crane cable

Dungog still life

Wilderness walk

breathing deep

labourers pouring

rare current

many things

on netball

driving cement

welder’s sparks

sun flecks

My small dogs

the ferry

Prepared

Hyde Park

small birds

Luna Park

golden threads

last boatyard

river opens

(in-between)

notebook left

make little

perpetual risk

driving on

blank space

Fire control

the consistent

finding a

my pot-belly

a still

seasonal soul

sole passenger

Warrior queen

Pacific Highway

Stuck on runway

beseeched is

Commuting

a man

Prepare for landing

a novel

on dark highway

big bass

Modern alchemy

Blundstones peek

Pagoda