Tasman
Peninsula
Sirens out at sea
on rocks, their long hair blowing,
holes in the ocean
throwing cliffs in the sea,
Virgil, The Aeneid, happened just the other day.
Silence along the shoreline.
Bare bones of shells,
Green and blue, green and blue.
Blood and water, blood and water.
The Remarkable Caves are graves;
the wet sand clamps souls shut tight
against the black sky.
Angels and seagulls cry,
and all, all, want healing.
The nameless gave their lives in songs, dreams, everything.
Boatless, fireless, without oil,
no cup, no shadow remains.
Only grass,
the singing waves.
(In collection, ‘Isolated States’, Cornford Press, 2001.)
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