Along Terrigal Beach

Needing more cash to get the fish
I walk via the beach

dark cloud, fat drops of rain
seagulls and some hooded terns
awkward among the weed

as the sun cracks through the cloudbank 

the headland to the right
a neglected transparency
but someone flicks a switch

on a lightbox
and we remember

against the darkness
the resurrected birds
white and swooping

seated at the quarried ledge
I remember

breaking the news to my mother
as my wife, unconcerned
prepared to cook

the other headland
darkly wooded
catches the light

and a thin, high-tech lighthouse –
a white arrow embedded
at its centre

and you across the world
reading
the white world outside
a frozen empty space

and words like gulls
lifting

View this poem on The Disappearing »