Songs from the Sea

Songs from the sea sighing
in beneath the spindrift to the land’s
curve, lying long beneath green bush
where the nikau palms stand sentinel
all along that shining margin
between sea and land, where the wind
goes walking through the wild grasses
and sea birds glide, sailing the currents
of the air above shifting saltwater
tides, plaintive, melancholy, crying
to the wide and empty skies.

All their songs are sung for you,
sough of the wind and sigh of the sea
are your lullaby and your requiem
where you now lie, in the green earth
of this country you loved so well
that in your passion to embrace it
you leapt too high, like Icarus flying
into the heart of fire, into the sun –
and so fell, back into emptiness
beneath the sky, where quiet now
in earth you lie.

(c) Helen Lowe

Published in Yellow Moon 17 (Australia) 2005

I wrote this poem in memory of Rod Thornton, aged 27, who died while mountain climbing on New Zealand’s West Coast. I wanted it to speak to his memory and to the landscape of the West Coast, which he loved. I believe it still does.

…’that shining margin’…

I’m reposting it today, because poetry, like the memories of friends and family members we’ve lost, both need to be revisited.

Nikau palms