and the gulf enters the sea and so forth,
none of them emptying anything,
all of them carrying yesterday
forever on their white tipped backs,
all of them dragging forward tomorrow.
it is the great circulation
of the earth's body, like the blood
of the gods, this river in which the past
is always flowing. every water
is the same water coming round.
......
'Twas Mulga Bill, from Eaglehawk, that caught the cycling craze;
He turned away the good old horse that served him many days;
He dressed himself in cycling clothes, resplendent to be seen;
He hurried off to town and bought a shining new machine;
And as he wheeled it through the door, with air of lordly pride,
The grinning shop assistant said, "Excuse me, can you ride?"
"See here, young man," said Mulga Bill, "from Walgett to the sea,
From Conroy's Gap to Castlereagh, there's none can ride like me.
I'm good all round at everything, as everybody knows,
Although I'm not the one to talk - I hate a man that blows.
......
I've finished life's chores assigned to me,
So put me on a boat headed out to sea.
Please send along my fishing pole
For I've been invited to the fishin' hole.
Where every day is a day to fish,
To fill your heart with every wish.
Don't worry, or feel sad for me,
I'm fishin' with the Master of the sea.
......
By the old Moulmein Pagoda, lookin' eastward to the sea,
There's a Burma girl a-settin', and I know she thinks o' me;
For the wind is in the palm-trees, and the temple-bells they say:
"Come you back, you British soldier; come you back to Mandalay!"
Come you back to Mandalay,
Where the old Flotilla lay:
Can't you 'ear their paddles chunkin' from Rangoon to Mandalay?
On the road to Mandalay,
Where the flyin'-fishes play,
An' the dawn comes up like thunder outer China 'crost the Bay!
......
No stir in the air, no stir in the sea,
The Ship was still as she could be;
Her sails from heaven received no motion,
Her keel was steady in the ocean.
Without either sign or sound of their shock,
The waves flow’d over the Inchcape Rock;
So little they rose, so little they fell,
They did not move the Inchcape Bell.
......
They say the waves at the shore, where foam meets the sand,
That once upon a time, no foam there did stand.
Until an old blind woman, knitting night and day,
Her sorrows and her joys of life in thread would lay,
Showed them to the sea, and the sea, in envy’s gleam,
Took up those crafts and donned them as foam’s white seam.
Upon the wet sand lay a ragged patchwork old,
Just enough for Tasso’s to sit, cross-legged and bold,
Knitting with her needles, tirelessly she toiled,
......
SEA WANTS ME
Waves are here for the winners
spirals floating in turquoise
dance ululating undulating
blue bright sight
a point with paddle board
to soar sanguine Seas
I know not whether I’m
merman or beach sand speck
......
TURTLE DOVE
A turtle dove
I landed on your chest
widened the jagged crack
Your Heart chambers shivered
quiet silver ripples in a
tender Garden of Eden
Watching me, your son
......
Scarlet sun peeks through
a slit in darkling storm clouds.
Butterflies go home.
Sky meets sea at plum border
as pink moon trails, in order.
Sea are you like a Creek?
Or are you more like a Flood?
Don’t worry I'll tell thee
you’re much like humankind
childlike like a Creek you start
come the dark times and into a flood you grow up
A Flood that seems to swallow everything whole
Ferocious and evil you will become
Lose the empathy for nature and all