St Kilda
Googling 'St Kilda'
as this chap idly did
having moved to a flat
in St Kilda Road -
clicked on 'images',
and what came up? -
that warm bayside
street-life suburb:
delicatessens,
disunited nations
of bling boutiques and
'ethnic' restaurants;
raucous Luna Park;
a garden-plots commune;
rows of phoenix palms,
pony rides beneath them;
walks to the pier cafe;
fairy penguins at night
in breakwater crevices,
protected native rats.
The fierce home
of a football team.
Heat wave ending
in sea-borne cool change.
Also: a barren Scottish
island, ruined cottages -
their word was 'sheilings' -
painful vacancy
of depopulation.
What might they share,
have in common?
Those islanders
emigrated here?
Hardly. History
mentions a schooner,
'Lady of St Kilda'
anchored by this beach
setting ashore its
British cargo and folk.
Migrants' mixed luck;
the need of naming
a place whose naming
by Aboriginals was lost
when they were moved on.
Gippsland, to the east -
that's where crofters
dislodged from Scotland
moved in, dislodging
those Aboriginals.
Elbow your way now
through the evening
throngs of St Kilda -
moving on,
moving along,
living in an absent-
minded present -
are the old disruptions
done with, buried? -
unknown, untold,
disremembered?
At the board-sports HQ
there's a webcam scanning
West St Kilda Beach,
tide and sky, night and day.
From home you can watch,
if they're out, the tough young
wetsuits sailboarding,
windsurfing, kiteboarding -
decide whether to join them -
or take the dogs down
for an off-leash romp,
present in the present.
At the moment there's
just one figure trudging south
and raindrops on the webcam lens
like an eye-witness's tears.
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