Taking The Air

High vantage points: places of temptation.
Before me, the sea's half-circle; teal rolls
towards celadon, recedes to slate grey
on an expanse sown with winking white eyes.
The combers' whisper is descant to the wind's
hard voice which importunes from every side —
an intimate enemy — flings a magpie
risen from salt-laced scrub onto the golf course.
A climb to the bluff offers the coast from Queenscliff
to Black Rock — the bridge with its shadow riding
the green onrush; the lighthouse a ghostly sliver.
The ocean is cloud-lit and cloud-burdened,
its far shores lost in galaxies of mist.
For an hour, all this in my keep.