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

For Mike. It would have been your 67th Birthday on 17 November.

The Blackbird Sings

Every evening a blackbird sings in the valley below.

I cannot fault his song

nor his determination to be heard,

so deeply sweet, yet sharp in the air.

Finally, it came down to this, a sterile room.

Not the place you would choose for final conversations,

a slim hard bed with a view of brick walls and dirty windows

where one small green tree climbed a corner nook.

A limited view, not even clouds passing,

nor bird song, only a series

of cheery ladies with other plans for the evening.

A framed print of a fading magnolia,

or you said, was it two naked ladies?

We laughed till you told me that the wall

had turned red.

Pain killers had side effects.

What horrors await us?

Are there already

lurking under the skin,

or calling us down the long white corridors

to meet us shuffling round the corner

with vacant unsmiling eyes,

shapeless, shape changing.

We wanted more time

to grow older, grow wiser in some way

possible, but not yet known.

The blackbird has learnt his song

from those before,

the memory of others

and a long line of perfecting

and living, not dying

in that moment of release
into the still air beyond brick walls.

© Anne Chappel