On Knysna Lagoon
Glinting-proud yachts, sun-boasting, deeply invested
in their mirrored moorings.
Floating checkers on a liquid board,
slowmotion pirouette on bank-heavy anchor chains,
holding position in wind, wave and water.
Furled masts attend like stiff antennas,
line-brushing the breeze in signal-search of clicked,
clipped messages from unsighted seas.
Barnacles bunch and tap out morse code
on the hard hidden hulls, sending syphered
wishes of 'Bon Voyage!' out into the tentacled currents.
A steam-forgotten train, olde power mist-swept out to sea,
once rattle-puffed and rolled over incoming waves.
The frail-fallen bridge, prostrate as the vertebral bones
of a fossilized dinosaurus, its ribcage of pylons exposed
in rusted spines, grips with a last grasp, down
into the sucking mudbrown silt. Only its bent,
buckled back heaves above in the tide flow.
Fingerling fish, flash and race to beat the washaway waters,
shoals break the miniscus in silver slivered eruptions,
shattering the glass-still surface into a thousand shimmering
shards of luminescent liquid to splinter-splash, then sink
to the swaying, submarine sedge.
Come down to the lagoon with me,
and we'll whisper our names into calling-cone conches.
Hold my hand, let's cross this bridge over the waves.
Our spirit-sails filled to billowing,
sail with me from the lagoon-safe harbour,
out into the blue deep where salty, scimitar
gulls will screech warnings.
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