office idyll

My compass' needle points

to far away shores and

remote distances call

fetching me,

my mind;

quietening my squall-cries,

and they drown, float,

transmogrify

into those of seabirds

flinging white-on-grey,

windy-winging,

stormbird-singing.

Rain dripping from pandanas

answers every need in me.

This solitudinal fancy

so suspends every day

in a dream that i walk

flattered city streets

strewn with crab-beads and coral,

seaweed and shell;

prints of bare feet.

It is no shame now to recall

youth and time, 

the beach years

and the choral

of seabirds;

to recline

in an office chair 

for a moment spared

in passionate fantasy 

of wind and rain, 

of tossed, foamy sea.