Marilyn Humbert
In ones and twos shaggy mutts sprawl soaking up the Turkish sun near walls etched with names. As we pass, a black hound stirs blinks one eye, ignoring the tourists traipsing on its seaside patch. Unlike Australia’s larrikin curs ready to brawl in busy streets and abandoned alleys, answer the packs’ chanting howls egged on by dingo ancestors to harass sheep herds in rural locales. Gallipoli’s dogs are content. Quiet companions to soldier’s restless ghosts.
Marilyn Humbert lives on Darug and GuriNgai land in Berowra, NSW Australia. Her tanka and haiku appear in International and Australian journals, anthologies and online. Her free verse poems have been awarded prizes in competitions, published in anthologies, journals and online most recently in FemAsia Magazine Oct 22 and accepted for publication in Live Encounters January 2023.
Old Water Rat Publishing 