Tuesday Poem: Escape to the Southern Ocean by Mary Cresswell

 

Escape to the Southern Ocean

Copyright Mary Cresswell

Here I will stay, she said; be done with the black north,
the harsh horizon rimmed with drought –
Planted the island there and drew it round her.
Therefore I find in me the double tree.

Judith Wright, “For New England”

The sailors laughed as she dropped over the side
not tragic at all – another excuse for mindless mirth –
she swam and she floated ashore with the tide
let loose the handhold of kelp, stood and looked around her.
Here the green winds, wet fog banks and mosses,
Here I will stay, she said, be done with the black north.

Each spring – each autumn – a sail five miles out,
but she never signalled nor cried to greet
the grey ships who laboured or flew – or failed,
leaving their shreds in unmarked deeps.
And she never forgot
the harsh horizon rimmed with drought. . . .

to read on follow this link to The Island Review

Mary Cresswell is a poet and natural history editor who lives on New Zealand's Kapiti coast. Her interests are very much with the natural world and our place in it, and she's often classified as an 'eco-poet'.

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