Poem: Second Valley

Second Valley

Fleurieu Peninsula, South Australia

The light silvers the water in the dam

pear trees blossom all along the creek.

With never-ending rain, spring is winter green.

We drive through close-knit curvey hills,

travelling down the Fleurieu Peninsula

to Second Valley Bay.

We pass a Moreton Bay tree, spectacular

and round, in that archetypal way.

Roadside signs say plants and eggs for sale.

Names of creeks and rivers

are once-upon-a-time; river-run sounds

and syllables that sing.

The settlement is drawn to size

the jetty and the beach, feel humanized;

fishermen cast out and humbly wait.

I hear you call, I’ve got one, and quick as that

a slippery squid, all curling tentacles and arms

and radiating light, sails through the air and slaps down.

The sun begins to settle on the sea, bringing

up the colours of the headland and the rocks;

fisherman fish on, in quiet time.

I sit on a memory seat and settle to a book,

co-incidentally a story of the sea

where the land surrenders, to the ocean

and the sky.

Karen Blaylock lives and works in the Adelaide Hills. A writer of poetry and essays she has been published in literary journals, newspapers and anthologies in Australia, and with her haiku in New Zealand and America. Her collection of poems, The Saying of Names, was published in 2022.

Readers’ original and unpublished poems of up to 40 lines can be emailed, with postal address, to [email protected]. Submissions should be in the body of the email, not as attachments. A poetry book will be awarded to each accepted contributor.

Photo: Wikimedia Commons / Luke Anderson