written on Wadi Wadi land

   
        lately, I take a book from the shelf,
Freud or Du Fu, but return it unread

         wander a glass back to the kitchen, grate zucchini 
consider the etymology of that hard double c (or the ens in ennui).

         The humpback migration is nearly done. I register 
the stragglers through binoculars, an infrequent bloom. 

         A tourist boat motors by, last of the season—
floral prints, polo shirts, life preservers, lookouts posted. 

         In his later years my father talked of building a yacht, 
a sizeable ketch, in our backyard. He’d bought a set of plans

       paced out the workshop, made the lumber yard
quote on marine ply and cedar ribbing.

         One day, he said, he’d hitch it to our little Mazda
and we’d drive down to the sea. My mother would crack 

         champagne on its bow, say a quick god bless and he’d be off, 
a new breeze freshening the sails.

         And there we’d be, his little family, waiting on the wharf
as he shrank to a dot past the headland. 

         Lateness fills a full page of Roget’s: 
last minute or high time, tardiness 

        versus blockage. All those verbs. How is it to
stall, defer, hold-over, be left behind?

         Is it better to linger, loiter or simply 
wait for something to turn up? 

       The view is empty now, whale-watchers depart
so I come back to the page to finish this piece—


       whitecaps before the southerly
       far off, a sail returning
       on rising seas. 

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Image: c/- State Library of NSW on Flickr. Charles Laseron, Cape Denison, 1912, by Douglas Mawson This photo of naturalist Charles Laseron standing next to sea-ice forming at Cape Denison was taken by Douglas Mawson, leader of the Australasian Antarctic Expedition. 

And for music this morning here’s Australian jazz trumpeter Ben Marston with his 2018 album Unfound Places (Youtube) – very cool.

And apologies for being a slack blogger in 2023. Hope you’ll stick around for the new year…