Headland

Barwon Heads, January 1986
The tide is coming in as the day ebbs.
This is the moment to edge and clamber
round the cliff face I have seen from many
angles, never touched. My feet lock or slide
on rocks wet with the sky's gleam; my hands
grip studs of quartz, move over clay woven
with funnel webs bright with spray — inside
each spiral, a cramped blackness, fed by the sea.
Where the cliff is sheer, I descend to sand
crisscrossed with foam, breathe between rock and mist.
Then on to the next shore, in the clear.
Climbing boulders slippery with moss, my body
still pays out its small thread of fear,
centres itself on effort, steadily, patiently.