Selected poems
Adult Child
Perhaps we were too directive
as we tried to guide while staying connected
with one so young, distracted.
Yet there was response.
Rules relaxed to laughter
as through best and worst we mucked
together; skills and knowledge grew
living side by side.
Some keep in close contact
but for others their bond holds from distance.
Mostly we meet in times of sadness or joy.
Fishing Port
Behind reefs and bomboras
off Warden Head, the breakwater shelters
Ulladulla fishing port and harbour.
Solid co-op boats show licences and bonding names
of Mediterranean women and English legends
like Angelica and Fisher King. Single coloured boats
wear fishing cranes and hold storage for catches.
Charter vessels are brightly coloured
mainly blue and white and bristle with rods.
A small fast boat is towed to the wharf on a trailer
while the rescue craft waits at the concrete topped inner wharf
behind the wooden jetty and stone breakwater.
Together they enclose smooth water where gulls and cormorants
wait for scraps from fishers.
A woman wearing a weather coat and woollen beanie
leaves a boat and offers us flathead.
A short stocky workman prepares for the next trip.
Sky and sea are calm today but not always
so the fleet is blessed once each year.
This port has bonded families for generations.
Paul Williamson is an Australian poet. He has published poems in Australia, UK, US, Canada and Japan. His has seven collections including Edge of Southern Bright (Ginninderra Press, 2017) and A Hint of Eden (Ginninderra Press, 2021). He contributed to and participated in the release of the Canberra/Nara Twin City tanka poetry volume in Nara, Japan in late 2018.