Wednesday 6 July 2011

Evening in Whyalla, South Australia

I wrote this in Whyalla a few months ago on a flying visit there.  Nothing special - you can tell I just sloughed it off after a plate of fish and chips and a few beers.  You can probably also tell I'd recently been re-reading Brewster Ghiselin's poem about Laguna Beach.  Anyway, here it is -



A ship sits, laden in cargo
Seemingly too heavy for the water
A breeze from the west pads in
Smelling of old lemons
Seeking a path to the east.

The sun, a ball of molten metal
Pastes shadows long across the street
Drawing indoors youth's energy
No longer sporting on the foreshore
Giving the lie to the steelworks strength

People settle down under electric lights
The fish and ship shop moves its sign to "closed"
No menace shows itself on either horizon
The waves continue to wash the sand
The city rests uneasily.

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