Poem: Storm at Sea
Books & Poetry
This week’s Poet’s Corner is from Trevor Gill, who is no stranger to the sea and maritime history.
Storm at Sea
There is no fury like a storm at sea
that builds a sky full of maniacs and
waves like crashing boulders with
crests that buffet and cut like blades.
What happens to the stars in a storm?
Do the sun and moon abscond?
What of the shattered colonnades
that held up the clouds?
Now they swirl around us
in a wind that screams.
Spare a ridge pole to save us
from the biting hail and from breathing water
and from tasting anger.
Whose wild temper created this chaos?
The pulse of the sea is racing and
peril prods from the depths and
the wind moans and tears at
the fragile pellicle of shelter.
Hold on with white and icy knuckles and
pray that it eases soon.
But when the pitch and toss has passed,
and the gale yields to a howl,
chilling shadows cross the pensive mind
because the sea has a memory deep
and there will be a next time.
Trevor Gill lives on South Australia’s Yorke Peninsula. A former daily columnist, sporting and feature writer with News Ltd in Adelaide, he has also been a correspondent for the company in the UK and Sri Lanka, worked on assignments in New Zealand, Japan and all states of Australia, and served on Canberra’s National Press Gallery. He is the author of five books and is currently working on his sixth. Variously, he has served as a board member of Falie Project Ltd, and as chairman of SA Tall Ships Inc, Yorke Peninsula’s Saltwater Classic, and the Stansbury and Port Vincent Wooden & Classic Boats Regatta Assoc, all roles dedicated to celebrating South Australia’s maritime history.
Readers’ original and unpublished poems of up to 40 lines can be emailed, with postal address, to poetscorner@solsticemedia.com.au. Submissions should be in the body of the email, not as attachments. A poetry book will be awarded to each accepted contributor.
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