Dawn Wind on the Islands

The needle of dawn has drugged them, life and death,

Stiff and archaic, mouldering into one,

Voiceless, having no mission and no path,

Lolling under a heavy head-dress. When

The puppet sun jerks up, there will be no

Convergences: the dead will be the dead,

Twirled in a yellow eddy, frail and dull.

These hands of mine that might be stone and snow,

Half bone, half silent fallen dust, will shed

Decay, and flower with the first glittering gull.

Dawn on the wide deserted airstrip swells

And the wind shifts and gains and gathers. If

The point of daylight balances, controls

The sense of life-and-death as on a gaff,

Then dripping it will come, and living—show

From this sea’s knotted blue that has no name

While the moon dies on its branches like a leaf;

As coral’s whitening belly it will flow

Inland before the sunrise, hang with flame

The tilted freighter breaking on the reef.

Here, where they died, oblivion will burn

The moth-winged bomber’s glass and gristle; weirs

Of time will burst, burying them; the sun

Casually mock a cross of stars.

And I have watched them die, wedged fast, below

The tumbling barracks and the yellowing page,

Each day more helpless and more desperate.

At dawn these agonies break loose and grow

Out of the rotted boards, the voices rage:

Cry, cry, but feel—but never forget.

The sun will rise, and with its landward swing

The dead will be the dead, surrendered up

To a dark annexation. Life will hang

Red lights of warning on the crumbling ship.

There will be only life and death. The slow

Roll of the east, the passport of the day

Blazing release, while still this moment lies

Over the island, this. I cannot know

If it is life that wakes, shaking the bay,

Hungry, and circling, and labouring to rise.