at Nambucca Heads
Sand and jasmine afternoon
melts down to lambent, jade-pale sea,
the bay a basin for the turning
tide, whose currents improvise
a dance of light and tourmaline,
terns and darting gleams.
Out of the curved, crested waves
project black triangles of fin
like shoulder blades, and then the high,
clean arc of torsos coursing in.
A bifurcated, earthbound thing,
I ache for grace I glimpse in them
of vaulting creatures, fluent, sleek,
blithe seagoing untrammelled beings,
travelling the songlines of the ocean
ways, still free...
1992