Collecting Eos

Deep Creek, Dec 6

Beauty accumulates as an osprey flies shadow
across a sky red ripe, the sinuous curves
of the river press light gently into the earth.
The first seagull wheels overhead.

Life is brimming with the intelligence of breath
and initiative of volatile oxygen, but with God
crying wolf each leaf becomes a machine.
The sea cracks a sliver of thunderous noise..

The estuary is hiding how it came to be
this beautiful, all the days that led to this,
the atrocities, casual violence, lucky mistakes.
The origins of flow are rarely transparent.

I know this place, but so much lies hidden
from the maps, brochures and Google Earth –
the crab holes, Sugar Gliders, nomadic gannets.
It’s still ten minutes till Eos opens the gates.

The resident Pied Oystercatcher in silhouette
is almost mythic, its loud piping call echoes
off the river banks and has never left us.
The world never refreshes completely.

The red eye winks, bulges at the waist then
blinds, brighter than an archipelago of angels,
the sea is squirming. I hear birds suddenly.
The door to a rowdy party has opened.

Or perhaps this is church, the congregation
are in bed, dreaming prayers almost forgotten
or forgeries. Christmas holidays are coming.
The makers will scatter bodies on the beach.

I photograph the damage, beautiful in this
ochre light, the skirt of the forest unravelling,
recently kicked by the river. For a few minutes
nothing else matters but finding more.