There’s an expression: to be comfortable in your own skin. The words contain the idea that it’s possible to be at ease with yourself and your life – and that there’s fulfilment to be found in feeling this way.

These thoughtful poems offer moments of pleasure in uncomplicated things – flowers in a window box or eating toast at midnight – and remind us that we don’t always need to look very far to experience a sense of calm and wellbeing. The world can be a place that we know and trust:

“There’s a dream I have in which I
love the world. I run from end to end like fingers
through her hair. There are no borders, only wind.”

from ‘Meditations in an Emergency’ by Cameron Awkward-Rich

This is a selection to enjoy when we want to be reminded that if we look carefully, we have all we need to experience a sense of serenity and peace.

Edited by Vanessa Lampert who likes to walk on a windy hill and hasn’t grown out of building dams on beaches.

Poems by Laurie Bolger, Em Gray, Paula Jennings, Vanessa Lampert, Alden Nowlan, Cameron Awkward-Rich, Sara Teasdale, Jerrold Yam, Luke Samuel Yates and Dean Young.

Cover illustration by Sara Boccaccini Meadows.