My Father

He does not listen any more, my Father,

when I phone him from across the world,

same day, same time every week.

His words carry a message he will not speak.

I cannot answer, for what can I offer?

I would like to say that I will be here

to listen again, to believe the past;

stories of old worlds he lived through,

for the present is a confusion.

His eye’s centre has disappeared,

slipped away, blanked out from overuse.

He has seen too much in the tropical suns.

Words I have heard before keep flowing,

as I listen to his breath, 
the heart beneath

and the life,
more precious than I can say.

The Emu Eggs

We climbed the desert mountain,

bush walkers, past pride of youth.

Private journeys across the cliffs

burdened with pain of body and soul,

our backs to the vastness,

mutely we challenged the red rock.

Suddenly, the plateau, beneath the sky.

Nothing else, nothing above.

A lightness of the air, such beauty

surrounded by the expanse.

A view uncontained, layers of blue and purple.

Far below, the bed of an ancient sea.

And there now at our feet, more wonder still.

An emu’s nest, full and round bearing seven eggs.

Here distilled, the colour of tropical seas,

the high wind of the callitris.

A gift beyond expectation,

a journey transformed.

©Anne Chappel

The Ethiopian Coptic Cross

(made from old bullet cases)

Bullet cases from the Sahara,

poor brass discarded

in the shifting sands

from forgotten wars,

one tribe settling

scores of ancient hate

till all memory is lost

of the original sin.

New sins blossom,

the only flowers

in a land where

starving goats hunt

last year’s pods

under dead trees,

and a boy child

watching the hills

balances a rifle

across his knees.

The old man hammers

out of the bullets

holy crosses

whose patterns

hold hands in a

splendour of promise.

©Anne Chappel

The Shell Collection

Before she died, my friend returned

her shell collection to the sea.

It was where they belonged, she said,

where they gleam brightest.

These are their remains

that in death make a beach.

Caressed by waves, pounded by storms,

marked by tides,

sorted and resorted by shape and size,

part of earth’s pattern in every day’s

new arrangement.

The tide turns and pauses

like a breath, out and in,

then the sigh,

the wait of a moment,

the choice of life rather than death.

And so I remember her.

When I walk the sea’s edge

and stop before a shell,

whose shape and form,

like some treasure dazzles me,

I pass by, letting the earth claim her own.

©Anne Chappel 

Argonaut Sea Gift

Have you ever found a nautilus shell?

On the beach, gleaming

amongst the dark sea wrack

each whorl, curve, indentation

a perfect creation.

Strange traveller of the ocean depths,

part bird, part hero of ancient times.

Home of a fearsome protector

whose lidless eyes saw other worlds

in a journey beyond our imagination.

Now stranded here, a sublime gift.

Fragile perfection borne through the blue

to death on the bright shore.

If god lives, this is his work,

no better could we do.

©Anne Chappel

No Names but Beauty

I caught a pink snapper

in the first light

pulling from the oil grey sea

a sliver of dawn,

salmon pink stripes

and blue dots,

eyes too large. The sun

spreading as blood.

Round eyes that saw

unblinking, or did not see

as I did, the last

slow waving of her

webbing on translucent fins

against the cruel air.

I did not know

there are shades between pink and pearl

iridescence, for which there are

no names but beauty.

© Anne Chappel

Along the Shore

There are new things

along the shore

where storms have carved

seaweed into dark banks

against fallen stands of sea box.

A solitary gum is dying,

broken glass shines brightly

along the thin shell line.

Beach shacks jostle for the view

sharp edged in the sun,

as buildings grow.

We read the signs

sometimes so gently given

with their own strange beauty

showing us the passing world

that our children will,

crying, try to remember.

© Anne Chappel

Skinning a Squid

Skinning a Squid         

                        

Its skin comes away in one piece,

translucent, a veil over my hand,

speckled like seaweed

with a thin azure line.

Stretching out, pulled

from the pale flesh.

I remember how its wings flowed,

diamond fins, rippling towards me

as I drew in the deadly barbs

and the invisible line in the dark sea.

Eyes are slippery orbs in the silver head,

I will keep for bait.

The tentacles still stick, holding on.

I cut the skin from the body and scrape

the mess into a bucket where it drops,

with the orbs of testes. The ink,

its purple life-blood, staining my hands.

There lies the sock of its body, milky-white

ready for crumbing and frying.

You can mince the head and innards,

freeze them in cubes for burley.

Let them enter the water once more,

dropping dead lumps to the ocean floor.

Nothing is wasted.

© Anne Chappel

The Alien Immigrants

The Alien Immigrants

In their own way

almost beautiful

these ferals dancing

upon our hillside.

Delicate, so easy

to pull out, roots and all,

they shudder under the sun.

The yellow flowers blooming

far from home:

French Flax, Wild Mustard,

proper names too hard

for us to learn.

We discuss methods

of eradication.

On the fertile ground

by the roadside

We have removed them

with spray and machete,

but up here among the rocks

on our wildest slopes,

they cling with hope.

© Anne Chappel