Reclining figures
 

1
Overnight
High tide
carved sheer faces
across the coastline
Left
skeletal trees
upright once more
Marooned,
bleached reclined figures
against the ink-streaked
Manuka skyline
Plangent winds
sculpt dunescapes
reduce headland
blood-red clay to sand
 

2
Skeletons arise
from shoreline
death beds
Tales of cut the anchor
and run
run the in-going tide
Smashed hull
Spanish Galleons
Dutch, English traders
Riding the channel bareback
 

3
The sea bed is cruel fate
A sunken prehistoric
Kauri forest, haunted
screaming lost mariners stumble,
Salt eye blind
The mighty Kaipara Bar
Harbinger of shipwreck
 

4
Low tide
I walk this
ancient coastline
In footsteps of
Ancestors
Mariners
I feel you
I hear you
Tangata Whenua
those who lived the Kaipara
Pakeha
those who died
entering her
 

5
Now, resting
I search
Flotsam and Jetsam
spindle pieces
Ovals with points
vertebrae and
Knife edges
Bleach boned
Soul cleansed
 


Dedicated to Henry Moore and the Mighty Kaipara.



(C) Copyright 2001
Doug Poole
All Rights Reserved


 

The Nexus Collection
DOUG POOLE




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