Half-hearted fires
Weigh mild summer nights.
Subtle summer winds, keen not to make waves.
Parties of skipping fish dance slowly,
Confidently shelved in bay, upon bay, upon bay…
Currawongs back vocals
To casual mis-chords of holiday strummers.
Pademelons politely enquire of fresh grass shoots,
Trailed where tanks, tourists leak.
Dark denim’ed devil ray shadows kayak’s underbelly,
Choofs off like (non-Palmered) UAP’s, when spotted.
Woah. Be gone. Woebegone goodbye.
Wobbegong skirts my skinsuit, shaggy beard,
Corrals baitfish twixt rock crusted corridors n’ coral.
Soft rattle diesel engine purrs,
Tired all terrains, spoilt for choice;
Semi purchase imprints on flyaway Esperance sand,
Rocky wobble across man-concaved mangrove’d mud,
Rock hop from tread trinkets to car chucked crag to basalt of careful consideration
(Side-tracked by tired FM rock).
Summer sanctuary for shearwaters, shorebirds,
Settle among shear waters, red-tide pesto poo run-off,
(Surfeit of sanctuary signs).
Empowered Eagle Safety Zone,
Don’t mind the powered lines.
Dis-grunted Mazdas
Carry Kaiping-Kingston kids,
Tear track to lighthouse, for light disappointment.
Small mammals skate rocky road littoral,
Waiting for tear’ed roadkill.
Shack-life campsite dunnies
Brace for incursion of Boxing Day evacuation.
Lukewarm beer-chats pour out all day,
Pull up just shy of unprotracted nights,
More unplugged sessions threaten.
Ripped tag new locals
Gift caustic sneers
To queue behind Jap vanned Jap journiests.
No clue lament last season’s viral lull
(Saw cafés halved).
Dual homed Hobos hovel here,
Struck between quarantine station stayers,
Kidnapped café Capucines (foreign legion bailouts).
Pom’ed Melburnians pump up prime purchase plots,
Plot overstayed leave, leave empty houses.
Sheep seem content.
(Although, like teenagers…).
Like underage parties,
Ill-content when ended before time,
For oyster, thyme pairings.
Cows surprised they’re homed here,
Surrounded by salty sea, salt bush,
(Salty marshes, salt-dry salty soils…).
Pleased enough til calves ripped away,
Swollen nipples stay.
Timed tours leave treads, plastic threads,
Too little trade, transactions.
Perma-smiled travel guides
Rush red-faced fatties up Neck stairs,
To smart phone serenity.
Penguin’s post paddle
Rookery ruined by unlit people,
Overpopulated by plaster cast parodies.
Posters ply platitudes for prudent possum passage,
Fell another Euc, slab that second shed.
Bombay Brahmins bulge at beach front barbie bays,
Un-bother beach bays.
Over clothed Indo’s,
(Escaping Bali anti-vax influx of Brizzy boat ballers)
Evidently unseduced by Tasman Sea siren,
Call of gelid blue-gel water.
Til today unspoilt,
Unfucked unlike K’gari, Nation Noosa.
Cashed up climate anxious aryans loom,
Wordfully weighting the wings.
Nuenonnes know how this ends,
Fanny’s Flinders Island Fugue.
Nayri nina-tu *Lunawanna Alonnah
Poem and image © Daniel Buckley 2022
