by PETER ROBERTS
We are all refugees.
His pipe etched a halo of Champion Ruby
fumes that even the blast of the Roaring
Forties couldn’t displace. Why did she leave
him? Rising, he paused to watch the fairy prions
and sooty oystercatchers begin to feed at low tide.
He loved animals. They were reliable.
And he loved this island, named after a board
member of the Dutch East India Company. The sea
spewed wave after wave into its rocky borders,
trying to break its resolve, without success. ‘Always
a moth to the flame’ his mother remarked on
hearing of his new appointment
He took the familiar path, under a tight canopy
of tea tree, toward the lighthouse. In the setting
sun it gleamed white, like an exiled Greek villa.
Merchantmen and oil tankers sought the light
and he would not let them down. This was not
a place to make landfall.