Creative writing
*Caretta caretta is the scientific name for the loggerhead turtle.
One day the stars cry out
and she begins the thousand miles.
Sun sears her craggy beak.
Salt waters cradle her bony dreams.
Though her flipper is sliced by a churning blade,
she swims on.
Now there is only this:
the sacrament.
She dares the darkened land, she lumbers
her sudden terrible weight
over sand and the dunes receive her.
Into her nostril curls danger,
few hatchlings will survive, her broken flipper
scoops only a crooked egg-chamber.
But she is ancient, patient, wild:
she drops her fat moist pearls
into the cavernous night
and buries them.
Black casuarinas roar,
wild seas sing.
She heaves back round to face the waves
and weeps long strings of crusty tears.
Out of mystery she comes.
To the unknown she returns.
Tomorrow the seas will
wash away her tracks.
Mon Repos, Queensland 2004.