David Adès is a widely published poet and short story writer. He is the author of Mapping the World, the chapbook Only the Questions Are Eternal and Afloat in Light.

David won the Wirra Wirra Vineyards Short Story Prize 2005. Mapping the World was commended for the FAW Anne Elder Award 2008.

David's poems have been read on the Australian radio poetry program Poetica and have also featured on the U.S. radio poetry program Prosody. David's poetry has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize, has won the University of Canberra Vice-Chancellor's International Poetry Prize and has been shortlisted twice for the Newcastle Poetry Prize. His poems have been Highly Commended in the Bruce Dawe National Poetry Prize, a finalist in the Dora and Alexander Raynes Poetry Prize and commended for the Reuben Rose Poetry Prize.

David lives in Sydney with his wife and three children. His website is at http://davidades.wixsite.com/poet.

David Adès

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Faithful to the Last

Faithful to the last,
follow the path your heart lays out,

despite all the paths it has led you down before,

the broken promises, disappointments,
the treacherous scree of love,

despite the long history of wrong turns,

the many-headed hydra of your doubt,
the deep rents it carries like stillborn children,

and the prospect of another rout.

Even though the path is twisty,
and who knows what dragon's lair might await,

you cannot abandon your heart,

so lovely, so trusting its own instinct,
so full of avid intent:

you would be empty shell without.