Sapphire Coast – Simon's still stanza

An Incoming Tide

Picture: Peering through trees to Merimbula Lake

An Incoming Tide

It was my privilege and delight to have served, at different intervals of time, in both Bega and Pambula Parishes. Both of them celebrate 150 years this year. I am unable to attend either of the celebrations. A truly beautiful part of this State of New South Wales, our family had holidayed there at times. Later I would work there. Part of me will always feel a yearning to be there. So, while I was adrift on a sea of memories, impressions and feelings, a poem emerged. It is included here.

Picture: Snug Cove at Eden

An Incoming Tide

An incoming tide

Of gratitude

Laps

Upon the shore

Of my thankful heart.

Hearing the news of 150 years

Fell upon me

A wistful haze

And then

A start!

Speak, I must

Of tidings,

Wishes to folks

Friends and others,

Who dwell upon

Meadows and hills,

Crags and beaches,

Or points and rocky ramparts,

That keep watch,

Over billowing seas.

Ah, the mighty Bega Valley

And Sapphire Coast.

Jewel that glints

And glistens,

In the eye

Of everyone who has seen it,

Felt it,

And breathed

The briny air.

And where it has

Taken them.

Taken them

It has.

To a place within,

Where a little piece of coast

Has settled in the heart.

And,

If one listens,

They can hear the reverberations,

The swirling sound,

Like a sea in a shell,

Stirring the caverns

Of our inner selves,

Keeping always a little current

Of this valley and coast

inside.

Picture: looking up the wending Yowaka River

Simon C.J. Falk 23 September 2015

A Return to Snug Cove

A Return to Snug Cove

A return to Snug Cove in Eden NSW. A part of the Sapphire Coast I have long loved.

A Return to Snug Cove

Sherlock Ship sits

Still and moored

As seagulls idly

Patter about the pavement.

The dock,

Quiet at this spot,

As we persons

Sit and stand about

With coffees and cameras

And various ‘what-nots’.

The sea-surface ever so tremulous,

More by sight than sound,

Though there may be a soft sploosh

From the little lapping.

Oh, to return to Snug Cove!

Latent with adventure,

Harbouring such history.

It’s wharf decks

Formerly blood-stained and oily

From quarry brought ashore.

Of fisherfolk in times gone by

Receiving the pay-packet

And parcels of prawns

Or other briny treasures.

Snug Cove

On a quieter morning,

But full, so full

Of presence

And meaning.

Simon C.J. Falk 22 August 2015

Yowaka River

Occasionally I like to post some older poems. It gives a bit of a mix. It also helps us see what is enduring in writers and what changes.

Yowaka River

In Yowaka’s twists and bends,

The peace follows in the breeze,

The calm is balm to all its friends,

Who shelter ‘neath its trees.

The mullet jump at passing insects skimming water’s top,

Flathead sink in sandy hollows in the river’s pools,

And then you hear a plop!

As children jump from the pontoon, when they’ve come home from schools!

Canoes you see a paddling,

Up river or down the mouth,

Cars the bends are straddling,

On the Highway north or south.

Fisher folk with plenty of pluck,

Cast into the balmy brine,

A puffer fish might test their luck,

Or a whiting find their line.

But the Kooris know the spots to go,

To find fish in scales or shells,

With patience that lets them take it slow,

And their dreaming giving them spells.

The Yowaka’s been here longer than us,

And will be when we’re gone,

It wends its way with little fuss,

Sparkling in the sun.

Simon C.J. Falk 21 December 2008

Eden Rain

Snug Cove in Eden, NSW (pictured above) provides a bountiful vista in any weather. The following free verse was written after I’d walked in fine rain along Eden’s Aslings beach during the last drought.

EDEN RAIN

Caught

in the moment

of Eden rain.

Needly,

The drops fell;

stitching

through the dryness

of the dusty air.

Life

it brought;

People took notice;