Bondi Beach 1975

 

Bondi Beach  1975

 

The place gave me a welcome and I liked it there.

It’s an honest part of Sydney.

As I walked down Bondi Road,

Hot and tired and unsuspecting,

Suddenly,

I saw the sea endless,

A release for those

Who work away their daylight hours

In offices in concrete towers,

To see the blue and level line

Of the reassuring sea.

 

And it’s strange that from the range

Of ten thousand miles of blue to Chile,

Where a million waves are each other’s graves,

This wave I watch

Should be the one

To speed those surfers laughing in to land.

This one from a hundred million waves

Will smack its lips on the tempting sand.

 

Two mermaids were erected once

On a rock at the end of Bondi Bay.

The Council judged them of aesthetic worth,

An embellishment to the town.

Well, the sea for fun

Took the legs off one,

And stretching out its arm one day

It carried the other one away

To its sandy couch five fathoms down.

 

By the beach in this built-up bay,

This friendly suburb of coke and spray,

You can sit with your pie on a bench and see

The thin blue line of eternity.