Size / / /

In this way come the names. The kete of knowledge, grasp them, word-woven.

The stars were not spilled from them to scatter—

they are taonga, treasured

a sorrowed son's gift to his father the Sky.

In the spaces between the great river of the goddess of the north,

cloud-shadow, counter-clear, in the south strides the Emu.

Rifted, reflected—

the same place holds the great waka, star-spanned

and the leaping maw of hammer-headed mangō-pare

earnest enemies of fishes.

Some names are found from the quickness of birds

(all the kindness of Tāne; leaf-shadow and branch-shiver, fern-frond unfolded),

even in the tired patience of the frigatebird's long arc, soaring the Pacific,

once seen from a small bark off the isles called Galapagos;

and some from the long slow vastnesses

the patience of ice, the presence of the All-Frozen, seal-teared

children of unknowing oceans.




Michele Bannister has an uncommon fondness for distant worlds both small and icy. She lives in Australia, where she is working towards her doctorate in astronomy. Her poetry has appeared in Strange Horizons, Ideomancer, Stone Telling and other venues, in the Here, We Cross anthology (Stone Bird Press, 2012), and is forthcoming in inkscrawl and Goblin Fruit.
Current Issue
7 Jul 2025

i and màmá, two moons, two eclipsed suns.
Tell me, can God sing / like a katydid; cicada-bellow / for the seventeen silent years?
In this episode of Critical Friends, the Strange Horizons SFF criticism podcast, Dan Hartland speaks with reviewers and critics Rachel Cordasco and Will McMahon about science fiction in translation.
Friday: BUG by Giacomo Sartori, translated by Frederika Randall 
Issue 30 Jun 2025
Issue 23 Jun 2025
Issue 16 Jun 2025
By: Ariel Marken Jack
Podcast read by: Emmie Christie
Issue 9 Jun 2025
Issue 8 Jun 2025
Issue 2 Jun 2025
By: R.B. Lemberg
Podcast read by: Jenna Hanchey
Issue 26 May 2025
Issue 19 May 2025
By: Elle Engel
Podcast read by: Emmie Christie
Issue 12 May 2025
Issue 5 May 2025
Load More