Itinerant winds bring gossip of an alien place
aloof unyielding land which lacks all fluid grace
where peaks consort with cloud and spurn the vassal sea
cliff-guarded realm which occupies waves’ territory.
Fierce squalls denounce the land and whet desire for war
with pledge of victory upon a foreign shore.
Pacific seas coerced by storms accept their fate
fast-swelling ranks now surge towards this terra state.
Sea Marshals, wind and tide, urge on their waves of war
ahead, through misty din embattled breakers roar.
On steep seabed white caps unfurl their spuming crest
then curling, hurling, charge the beach in line abreast.
High ground confounds, grim purpose lost in foam and spray
beneath white pall waves’ essence under-towed away.
But theirs is transient death, an interchange of form.
Those slain at ANZAC Cove could never be reborn.
© Jack Perkins May 2002
