The Gap in Albany: Can you hear the Sirens singing?

Sirens of the Southern Ocean

I wrote the following poem about the gap in Albany.

When I was a child of five in between chasing my father's golf buggy wheels down Parade Street and watching the whalers moor their Norwegian guns and depart for their rendezvous with the Sperm whales at the drop off to the continental shelf, in between these times I was periodically taken to the gap. I shun that place today for I believe it contains an uneasy spirit, a temper and aggrieved brooding.

I remember in the late 60s, the sight of teenagers with their legs dangling over the edge. They sat as if tempting what ever it was that lived and waited for them, if ever one of them was to slip and fall. The deep blue of the ocean, cobalt blue, angry grey, and roar of swells came surging for the shoreline.

And I read the blog of the one who is a fisher-she, a fisherman of that sea and coastline and she who drifts upon this cobalt blue with ease leaves me pondering. I know where my respect or fear originates. As that same five year old I remember some fifteen children including myself in a cabin cruiser negotiating the shore break at a Lion's day picnic at Frenchman's bay, or some bay similar. The boat had strangely veered from its course and flipped, and I with eyes wide open under water grasped at brightly coloured bathing costumes that resembled seaweed and somehow, in those seconds that seemed minutes, I made it out from under that boat and the wash of confused sand and bubbles.

I remember as I cleared the confusion and crying mass of children, I remember my saviour and rescue party, my lone father running-struggling through the beach break in his Sunday suit (as we had just left the mass at St Josephs). That morning the two girls I had sat between on that boat left with busted foreheads. And I left with a deep and continuing respect for that southern ocean. I know too that the submarine shapes that gorged themselves on whale blubber from the whales that lay tethered to 44 gallon drums at the Whaling Station also had an effect on me. And in recent years some cousins from Nannup were lost to the southern ocean.

And now, every traveler I meet, I tell them, more like plead with them to be careful, full of care and to have respect for that southern ocean, that brooding ancient sea, that deepest blue who demands respect. Is it her eyes we look into but cannot see? Is it her songs in her breaking of waves and movement of tides that we cannot hear?

The Sirens of the Southern Ocean

Can you smell the salt air?

This scent of singing sirens whose mournful melody lingers, whose fingers rise from the cold worn rocks below – deep is their undertow – that reach to find you and would draw you near.

Can you taste the salt air?

This fingering fragmented froth that lingers seeks to touch you; reaches out to connect you with the sea and its mournful melody that holds to its memory of men and women lost who never understood the cost - of wandering too close to the sirens songs - to their tidal surge and singing and all their anguish bringing.

Too close so many have wandered till swept from view in a silent mournful moment, swept away.

Oh rock fishermen I pray for the lost, for those who seek the siren’s froth; through night time into day; in their passing away we miss them; will always miss them; would warn them please take care when they hear the sirens and feel the salt air that rises from the cold worn reef and rocks below.

Tis the siren's singing, for deep is their undertow. They want to draw you near.