Pleasant beach ramble, Max. Slightly unclear who is being addressed however, beginning as it does in second person, shifting to aloof 'one', then drifting to first person plural, back to 'you' before finishing on that 'we'. Or is that the point: lunar shakings of points of view?
Bill
> On 22 Jan 2014, at 8:23 pm, Max Richards <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>
> 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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