SIXTY PERCENT

Poor poets prate in cliches
Of rivers that run to the sea
Of streams winding down to the harbour
Where the weary find sanctuary

Such writers align men's souls
With the flood of the incoming tide
The sailor, the hunter, the lost ones
And all of those who have died

They write with well worn metaphor
How beloved dear ones will be
As one with the great heaving ocean
The stream, the lake and the sea

And the scientist in me wonders
Where the truth of the words may be
For we're at least 3/5ths water
And our tears match the salt in the sea

As matter cannot be destroyed
our water will always be here
Whether streams or steam or clouds
Floating high in the atmosphere

And the poet in me rejoices
When I've quit my mortal plane
I shall still be here in some form
Mayhap falling as sweet gentle rain

Cooling at first the dry dusty earth
Raining down from on high
Sliding along the lightning's tail
Drenching the lowering sky

Dousing dust from the gum leaves
Flooding hard on the plain
Gurgling down dirty gutters
Filling streams and creeks again

A continuous cycle of water
Life giving rain I'll be
At one with the streams and the rivers
As we flow to the endless sea

DRIFT

Young folks rush to the city
for fun and gaiety

Parents move to suburbs and towns
To raise up their family

Retirees drift to the coastline
To live 'neath the azure blue sky

Old folks retire to swim and fish
Play golf, relax and die.

SEA DREAMS

May has fled and stolen my father
June creeps by on wintered feet and Spring has yet to show
Hoary frost ghosts the ground
And blasts lingering leaves from the trees
Through Summer and early Autumn my father waited
Eyes fixed on horizons not visible to us
Conversation was hard, his breath nearly spent
Sucked out by his dreadful, beloved smokes
I cannot see him, even now without one
Eternally in his hand, blue haze drifting.

Poetry was his joy in life, his gift to me
I looked through his books the other day
A marker showed some favourite lines
'I must go down to the sea again'
He's gone, my sea-dreaming father
On a voyage we all must travel.
He cast off one morning whilst we
In our ignorance, tip-toed softly to let him sleep

He set sail for places more distant than time
Without a backward glance for those on shore
He left behind the shackles of a worn-out body
And a family to mourn and grieve his going
My father is dead. he is dead.
His chair is empty, a book unfinished nearby
His coat and hat hang yet by the door but he has gone

Winter will lift and Spring will come once more
Grey, lowering clouds will part on azure tinted skies
And I will still be here
I am here and as long as I live and read and dream
My father lives