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.

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(C) Copyright 2001
Doug Poole
All Rights Reserved