St Kilda Pier by Night
The walk to the cafe
at the end of St Kilda Pier
is longer than it used to be -
by the time you get there
in hope of refreshment
closing time may well have
arrived just before you.
Ah well, the walk back,
though also longer,
will have done you good.
Terra firma is crowded
with cafes - and with their patrons,
whom one had hoped
to distance oneself from.
Next time, not only start
earlier but take in what's beyond
the cafe and the pier proper -
the breakwater with its crevices.
On the sheltered side at dusk
a crowd had gathered, we saw,
watching for the Little Penguins,
famous for lodging there each night.
Time it right and you see
glimmering wavelets
concentrate into glistening
swimmers, tiny, purposeful -
fed (says the notice) after their day
gulping down sardine-shoals
on the bay - ready for rest,
clamber out of their element
into ours, briefly upright,
dignified so we chuckle at them,
snap-snap-snapping them,
and sigh as they settle
into their crevice nests
just above high tide-line.
Time it wrong and you see merely
shoulder to shoulder the crowd
you'd hoped to avoid,
murmuring all the lingoes
of foreign and domestic tourism,
fingering their cameras,
much more patient than we
(too restless under the night sky)
so we chuckle at them instead.
The moon though full is in trouble,
obscured by cloud then released,
shining on our comings and goings,
withdrawing for privacy,
seclusion, self-contemplation.
We! haven't we been
drawn out of ourselves!
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