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David J Costello

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The Cataraque

I walked along the tidal band
where drift-wood marks the waters reach,
and salt dissolves the branded sand
of footfall trace across the beach.

I heard amongst the foaming hiss
far-faded, voices from the past that,
where the land and water kiss,
had seen their kindred for the last.

Through all these years of mourningful
regret, the dispossessed still stand
like ghosts. Above the wailing gull
protests the sanctity of land.

Flocks of guilty waves, all crested
white in foaming fury, wrestle
distractedly, over blasted
bone and splintered wood and coral.

Green fingers of kelp impart the
last pawing humiliation
upon the petrified debris
of the "Cataraque's" incursion.

And lost to time is the precious
cargo, scattered like sad spent seeds
in the sea, wrinkled and ageless,
all slowly drowning like good deeds.

(The sailing barque,”Cataraque” was shipwrecked on 15th April 1845, one
emigrant survived. This still, today, rates as Australia’s worst civil disaster.)
Poem was runner-up in 2009 Sefton Poetry Competition.

Page(s) 26

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