I met you on a Surfcoast beach
where the Hooded Plover breeds
that beach where
when people approach a nest the parent Plover leaves
chicks and eggs vulnerable to scavengers like gulls, foxes and cats
just six hundred Hooded Plovers left
They’re a threatened species it seems
and so are you,
you children from East Timor, Afghanistan, Somalia, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Sudan and Iraq
just chicks and eggs
You rushed down our beach as if you’d never seen the sea before
Elias had already seen a different sea
journeyed all the way from Nazaria in Iraq
Aged 17 through Malaysia, Indonesia
saw his sea from a leaky boat
Nazaria to Woomera
‘We came for freedom’ you said
But ‘it was sad’
some of the girls wore hijab
climbed over black volcanic rocks, spewed from nearby Mt Duneed
in a lava stream a million years old
looking like large heron birds
the same pale mauve of their hijab against the black rocks
searching in the pools between the rocks
like heron
searching for freedom
You offered me your lunch
as if I was the guest
on your shores
I’ve never tasted halal sausages before, I said
Brother and sister, Elvis and Erna
torn from East Timor seven years ago
sat on that beach and shared dreams
rooted here now and putting out new growth
Elvis seventeen on a springboard to university
Erna, fifteen dreaming of sports medicine
Today I hear that
Elvis is now permanent and may stay with us
But Erna and her family will likely be sent back
Nicely sliced down the middle this family
Future uncertain it seems
That day we taught you about
sea safety and swimming between the flags
how rips can suddenly drag you out to sea
pity
you were all swimming
outside the flags
John Bartlett © 2003
