My ship ‘Foursquare’ awaits repair
in Hobart Port’s deepwater haven.
Sister steamship ‘Vanity Fair’
will bring the engine part’s replacement.
So, with many days to spare
I seek the untamed western spaces;
the Point where oceans come unfurled
which some have called the edge of the world.
Blackwood, Blue Gum, Huon Pine,
fine-grained Leatherwood, smooth and limber,
burlwood, fiddleback, swirled or lined;
the ‘Foursquare’s’ hull is packed with timber.
Now I walk where the live trees shine
and lacework folds of lichen shimmer,
watched by keen White Goshawk spies
with sharp resentful dark red eyes.
The rattle of Hardwater ferns,
the silent tread of green moss carpets,
out to where the salt wind burns
the coastal heath and buttongrasses.
Here the clean blue ocean spurns
the river’s tannin brown advances.
Here on rocks dead trees are cast
and unchecked Roaring Forties blast.
If I could see ten thousand miles
there’d be the coast of Argentina.
Nothing in between defiles
the curving ocean’s aquamarine and
this is why the Point beguiles
for nowhere else is air washed cleaner.
Why then has a sudden gloom
weighed me with impending doom?
From Argentina to Brazil
my line of sight is northward drifting.
Thoughts of home and wife instil
a dread where once they were uplifting.
Dry stick Petty always spills
disaster and our lives are rifting.
Deep forebodings are the tithe
of wedding a girl who’s young and lithe.
Fresh algae clings as salt waves drub,
defying rollers’ rhythmic scrolling.
Tenacious orange lichen crusts
embed their roots in bare rock shoulders.
Trees were cut, I’ve smelt their blood,
but seen them dressed in bark and foliage.
Now I watch their white bones hurled
from this, the tilting edge of the world.
Leave a Reply