After 75mm of rain in the last day or so I took the opportunity to see how the local creek had responded. Balcombe Creek runs down from the slopes of Mt Eliza and is usually a slow moving flow. Yesterday morning it looked more like a river, running into Port Phillip Bay and discolouring the bay with the sediment and soil washed out.
It was nice to be able to get outside for a few hours after a very wet week.
Upstream, the moving, swirling water flows to the bay.
A beautiful morning with a south-easterly blowing offshore. At the the point, just south of Fishermans Beach, watching Gannet diving for fish. White against the steel blue sea, they disappear into the sky as they edge against the wind and then come full into focus again with their white bodies just before the plunge.
They were a fair way out but it was nice to see them and I watched for a long time.
Recently, I was reminded again of the power of film when an American viewer emailed me seeking a poem of mine that appeared in a short film by Nicholas Denton, Pillars (2017)
I blogged a little about that HERE but I saw when I looked again this week that the movie has now shifted from Vimeo to YouTube and you can see the whole thing there.
The poems shifts in and out of the narrative a bit, and is used at the end of this powerful film. It was lovely to see what Denton did with the poem and how poetry can be used in this visual medium.
Locked down, and perhaps about to be locked down even more securely, it seems more important than ever to focus on what’s right in front of you. As Victoria struggles to bring down the number of Coronavirus cases I’m grateful that I can still walk by the seaside and, through my mask, take in the shape of the world.
I’ve always been interested in the look of water from above; looking down into it from Avon, impenetrable mostly. I saw an exhibition of Roni Horn’s photography and bought a copy of Another Water, photographs looking down into the Thames.
My little vignettes were taken on an afternoon walk near Mornington Pier this week after work. It was a beautiful winter day with so much to look at, but on this walk it was the textures on the water that attracted my interest: the differences between the two sides of the pier, the little swirls and swells of energy pulsing across the shallow sand, the sense of depth and cold with even the sun swirling on the water. I suggest watching them full-scree, on repeat! Shut out today’s news.
One of the nicer things about winter is the lack of crowds. Another is the bay on cold, still mornings where it seems to be in hibernation, breathing lightly. This morning the faintest of pulse-like wavelets, arriving on an island of sand at low tide, and wrapping their energy gently around them.
I stood there for a while, filming it, and taking it in.
A friend of mine bought a drone and too me out flying it, setting up dual controls. He flew, and I took some photos. I was interested in the change of perspective, of seeing this familiar coastal strip from a different angle. Here’s footage, flying towards Bird Rock, where I’ve spent many summer afternoons. It was a clear winter day and the water was so clear.
thinking about poetry 