turning the tide

What do you do when it’s all done?”   Up at The Entrance he sits and watches . Up at The Entrance I sit, we sit,  and watch . It brings you alive , it keeps you  alive . Well what will you do when it is all done?

 

 

seat at beach

 

 

 

turning the tide
it’s a big sky the horizon
where the sea meets it
would be a lonely line
except for the old man who keeps it company

he knows the weathers personally
sits watches over the lake’s journey into the sea
keeps the tides on track
shepherds their turning    checks they’re on time

what do you do when it’s all done
leathery face  salty beard
his blood-shot eyes
smile contentedly

vicissitudes of lake eyre

Kati-Thanda It was late August 2009. After record breaking rains in Queensland it was predicted flood waters were enough to arrive by Warburton Channel to fill Lake Eyre. We arrived in time to witness the spectacle of a blinding sun-dried salt pan desert transform.
My poem was in response to this miracle

vicissitudes of lake eyre

bleached salt pans
glint in a hostile sun
their mirage
a phantom deathtrap
in a land of unreachable horizons

yet sometimes flood water
flow
crack the parched earth
eddy into the cavernous silence
and like touch arouses longing
water stirs
awakens a dormant world
into golumptuous life

fish like transparent slivers of glass
brine shrimp trilling tadpoles
become a teaming ocean
luring flocks of birds to roost and feed

a million water birds in a desert sky
a paradise
till drought
kali with a flaming sword
banishes life once again