The Centre of Zero: Poems 2019-2024

By Warwick McFadyen

A reflection in poetry on the changing nature of grief and the effect on a father of the loss of his son. A deeply moving collection which includes new poetry as well as some pieces published in earlier volumes by the same author.

• Language: English
• Publisher: PB Publishing
• Release date: Apr 11, 2024
• ISBN: 9780645892369

Warwick McFadyen

Warwick McFadyen is a highly respected writer and poet. He is a journalist with the Melbourne Age newspaper.

Book preview

McFadyen, Warwick

The Centre of Zero

ISBN 978-0-6458923-4-5

E-ISBN 978-0-6458923-6-9

Published by McFadyen Media

PO Box 19 Gisborne Victoria 3437

©2024 Warwick McFadyen

Design and production: PB Publishing

Copyright resides with the author. The moral rights of the author have been asserted.

Photographs: Warwick McFadyen

Some of the poems in this book have appeared previously in the author’s books The Ocean and 21 + 4.

To Pip and Grace

and, forever gone,

and forever within,

Hamish.

These poems are the tidal charts from the past five years. If there is an overlap within them and to another, that’s the waves coming up against each other, and the currents rising and falling. In the wash of life and loss, there is a centre that can hold. It is love.

CONTENTS

WATER

Flow

The Rockpool

The Unbreaking Wave

The Wake

River

The Ledge

The Swimmer

To the Ocean

Bridge

The Sea and the Dream

Time and Blood

LIGHT

Intimations

Winter is Upon the Earth

The Leaving (when spring comes)

The Light that Travels

Nightfall

On Seeing

Autumn Twilight (For Peter)

Glint

All These Things

Threads of Light

EARTH

Into the Grain

Another Graveyard

The Rose Within

The Plaque

Compass

Map

A Graveyard on Anzac Day

Early Morning

The Harvest

Easter Sunday

The Weight

Oak and Acorn

VOICES

The Wait (Father to Son)

The Door

The Second Christmas

So It Goes

Listen

Two Zeroes

Life in a Word

Deeper

Gift

Still Life

TIME

The Hours

Incantation

Call/Response

Sleep/Awake

If, 2023

Artificial Intelligence/It could be Anyone

An Afternoon Storm in the New Year

Hand and Glove

The October Poem

Span

Stone and Star

The Air Moves

The Glass

True North

The Centre of Zero

AFTERWORD

WATER

Flow

Empty this into my heart —

the sky, the infinite surface,