Lost Hats at Loch Ard Gorge
(near Port Campbell, Victoria)
Donıt go too near the edge!
Above the ocean-besieged ravine,
they clutch their cheap straw hats:
the gale tears at her thick tresses
and his greying hair, presses
her cotton shirt at her breasts
refreshing his sense of the rest
of her, and flaps
his slimmingı trousers
round his too-slim ankles.
Buffeted, she turns away; he leans
with the wind defining
her straight outline, dividing
deliciously her skirt
at the back of her
much-admired knees
and further north...
Wearing a loose skirt
for their windy cliff walk
is her mistake, yet
one he doesnıt regret.
(Please, Iıd rather you admired
my eyes than my knees.ı -
request fulfilled with ease.)
There go their hats!
after them! - down steep steps
that the coach-load of tourists
snapping and chatting
about historic shipwrecks
have just all left.
Could the gorge be theirs alone?
She is so nimble
heıs proud as if he was her trainer,
or dance instructor -
he who prefers to amble
and canıt be coaxed to dance.
The hats have found
a swift way down, one
involving gull-like swoops,
quiet, unlike those birds scavenging
in hungry raucous troops.
To the sand or the water?
Sheıll be there first,
by many lengths. Well behind,
content to be second,
he notes her buoyant
parachuting skirt
in her downward pursuit
of objects of no value
except sentimental.
High above those lovely knees
skirt is lifted by the breeze.
When he does catch up,
sheıs panting, laughing,
seeking his gaze,
empty-handed.
So is he, till, finding that
the place is solely theirs,
the afternoon waning fast,
the ocean pounding,
she puts her hand on his
palpitating heart,
he puts his hand on her
heart - pulsing fast,
then his mouth,
she guiding it south
and then back to her mouth.
Drawing breath
they have to laugh
at the resounding
cliché of the pounding
gorge-crowding surf,
stranding themselves then
on sand well beyond its reach,
resuming, eye deep into eye,
elbow to elbow, hip to hip,
knee to knee, lip to lip.
Two brine-soaked hats
toss and slide in the foam
and its undertow, till the tide
turns, recedes, leaving them too
stranded in the cold ravine.
Max Richards
Doncaster, Victoria
25 April 2007
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