Absence

• Emily Schipp, Grade 10, Launceston Church Grammar School - Senior Campus
• Poetry
• 2022

Finalist in the 'National Treasures 2022' competition

There is a melancholy beauty in the things you cannot see;
They lurk between two worlds, yet are
As clear as day to me.
There is a foreign land beyond the glass-work of your eyes;
I journey there in moments when
I long to see blue skies.
There is a sullen sadness in the words you left unsaid;
They now swirl among the endless empty spaces
In my head.
They are swift in their departure, a moment here, then gone;
Leaving me alone in my dear longing
and perpetually forlorn.
Your love has left me stranded, my open hands still grasping;
How sorrowful I am
In the shortness of its lasting.