Lakes Entrance on a glistering spring
Saturday late-afternoon, the best time,
of course, to walk - under the slanting sun
over the bridge to the ocean beach,
muzzle just above the jaws, so to speak,
of the Gippsland Lakes, giant Bunyip lips,
white man's technology devised, that grin
to be breathing tides twice daily out and in
and to let ships sail, sport and leisure
of the moneyed, maintained by dredgers,
sand pipelined up to raise a dune by strips.
We walk by the middle-of-nowhere-board urging caution,
bragging this site has 24/7 surveillance.
Oh yeah? By the cormorant, who gives us a glance,
perching on iron pillar over waves' commotion.
"I've never seen such a deep band of Prussian,"
says Joy, "The shelf must fall away so quickly here."
That deep yielded to turquoise shallowing;
and when each wave rose up, its vitreous thinning
revealed swirled sand within, grain-clear.
That all such glass would churn itself to foam
opaque and smooth as milk-froth machined -
google that biochemistry to find
surfactants from proteins, lignins...
organic matter mantles beach margins;
The dead foam for our pleasure.
Driving back we listen to Tristesse
(Chopin Opus 10, Etude 3, E Major)
that quiet nostalgia so must rise and rage
against the shores of present deep distress,
before the little lamp's relit, a night light -
and the frogmouth's started early, a stayer,
joined by that cuckoo of the night, the mopoke,
Aussie Totoro with his clay pipe.
.........................
*surf-actants make suds in your washing and washing up
*lignins come from wood and plants
