Two blue and yellow Ferryboat,
which take people to look at Whales,
are coming in quickly; a third soon
as their tours conclude, coinciding
with a sea change as the wind gets up.
Where I sit, with the black Work-safe
Course pen, late afternoon, before cricket
practise, I can see all the way to the next city.
I can’t actually see the next city,
two hundred kilometres along
the cliff bordered shoreline, I know where
this city is situated. Like when,
from a surf beach in the city
in which they are still peeling
the plastic off their new buildings
I look back toward where I am now
and say: That’s where we live, see
the paper-weight of the mountains
on the far flat pages to the horizon?
Closer in, a dinghy bobs and swivels,
an older man, wearing the old style
orange, square life vest, has the oars out
dripping watery curds; apparently
unconcerned by the changing weather.
Earlier the ocean was the blue tone and tint
Travel Posters print. Dolphin scumaged
and flipped being photographed and swum with
an easy one hundred swimmable strokes away.
Now it is pea-grey, mud-spearmint.
Sky a gauzy white, darkening
around the edges, like where a snow
-globe is glued onto the base.
One of the vessels has stopped,
and an aeroplane circles too.
A whale must be in close,
shepherding her pup.
The man in the small white boat
hasn’t moved, he must be on anchor,
but I don’t make out a fishing rod.
Just sitting afloat the reward.
And our reward is to read this sea, land and lazy scape.