Kristi Johansen
receded
along the mud flats
the scum
white frothy residues
Limbs
were broken
Shells
Splintered
with barnacles under foot
just a matter of course,
down the ramp, next to the tin shack
about two down river
the watery slap, slap boat side
skipping stones along its axis
the surfaces we break
the ripple
The traces of events that expand and expand
To wander
the footfalls
along the bank
on the punt
upriver
A territory of birds
A Sea Eagle perched atop the right branch
limp boughs drop a curtsy
she’s past her third husband now
boats are birthing
Ground the boat
Ground the boat
Idling
Couta
Salted
wet
unpacking
gut the fish.....
territorial gulls
break into Long Call
Glaucous-wings on voice
after the entrails
A whistling
Swells
A fissure falters
Unmoored
Bin in the wars
The spirit groans
Within
traverse the edges then
Where feathers and sticks and broken withy unite
Bend down, stoop, archaic, humble,
Wallow
wading into the fullness
among
the rocks,
careful of the under tow,
watch out for the rip
then being urged to
“STOP MAKING WAVES’.
Tides in
The cumulus is building
She’s drifting
Loop knots
Slipped the moorings
Built with the King Billy
A lightweight huon pine
adz shaping the pine
with bell like tones
changing with the density
The Curvature in the wood
Is shaped for the knee
and smoothed edge to edge
Oh, The lustre
She’s going after heavy weather,
Tether down
the moons on its back....
tarpaulin stretched,
to the end
the triangled edge
sharp
water
tight
jib
bough
sprit
Pointing into wind
With Waves cresting
she follows the courage along the coast
Amidst a radiant darkness
Will our anchor hold?
Contextual Essay: My uncle and I sat in conversation about life on the river in Tasmania where I was brought up. We reminisced about the life then and talked of the language that was shaped by place and/or the place that was shaped by the language we gave it; Both of us have been ‘shaped’ by it. We both have walked the flats, upon broken limbs and splintered shells. Both of us have ‘bin in the wars’.
Kristi Johansen grew up ‘boat side’ on the edges of the Leven River on Tasmania’s North West Coast. She wandered along its banks and upon its edges. She has always loved those on the edges. She reclaims those edges and those that have dwelt there; it is here that she pursues the redeeming love of telling story in whatever its forms.
Old Water Rat Publishing 