Bronwen Manger - One Poem

Tricks of the Light

I think we've met in wildflowers,
and lay somewhere unpoisoned
before now; I think I've seen you -
thrown from muddy mountains;
sometime frightening I held you -
heard your whisper in the tatters
of a dream before the answers
overtook the mysteries. I think
we've loved as children - spoke
in colour, not in language,
touched in song but not in body,
through the curtains of a moment.
I think we've been the royalty
from a kingdom of the half-light,
where our memories ran together
in the cadence of the pine trees.
In long shadows of the evening,
in the lyrics of the magpie,
on stone bridges in our midday,
I think we may have met.
And I think that I believed them
when they said you were a figment,
that I'd never ever find you;
sincerest fool I've been.



Bronwen Manger is a 27-year-old poet and spoken word artist from Melbourne, Australia. Her poems have appeared in a number of anthologies, literary journals and other publications, as well as on TV and radio. Bronwen has featured at various poetry readings around Melbourne, Perth and Canberra, often alongside her identical twin sister. Outside of the poetry world, Bronwen works for Deakin University in the area of investigative interviewing research.