Fairlight, Sydney.

I have been asked by an American reader about some words used here; she took it that the heads were floating in the water and because of Manly, that there were sexual connotations. Manly surf beach is the beach on the other side of the harbour entrance from Bondi. The heads are North and South Head, huge cliffs, with a narrow 'mouth' into Sydney harbour. I lived on the cliff and could see both the surf on one side and just beneath me a sheltered cove. The heads are are a nautical term for the 'jakes' or 'loo' on board a boat. I wrote this for an Anglo/Australian audience but thought that the Heads were as recognisable as the Golden Gates throughout the English speaking world.



I remember sitting in my bedroom,
looking over Sydney harbour,
watching the small boats sailing
in the clear blue water,
not a cloud in the sky.

The humidity way up,
the temperature over 100 F.
The view from Fairlight showed Manly,
and the Pacific rollers on one side,
and the sheltered waters of a cove,
on the side my room faced.

I could see the Heads,
not those heads, you fool,
and sometimes all the boats would race for shore
and the clouds would come spewing forth,
driven by the polar wind,
icy cold, straight from the Antarctic.

Sometimes I would read,
or listen to music,
but my eye would be drawn back,
to the drama below,
Of those boats racing for safety
before the buster hits.

Out in the dusty, arid streets,
everybody breathes in relief,
glorying in the sudden cool.
unaware of the couple stranded there
boat capsized, and sharks circling around,
drawn by the blood washed down from the abattoir.

I do not know the result,
because in the meantime the rain hit,
and obscured the view for an hour or two.
When it cleared there were no boats to be seen,
and no swimmers in the water.