This Year's Harvest Poem by michele fermanis

This Year's Harvest

Ghosts of fires wash in
trees broken into blackened shards
till smaller they become
mere threads floating on the tide

my shoes heavy with brine
carry the scent of decay
their soles worn thin
scouring remnants from the sea

sand reveals then conceals
gifts its sweep of pebbles
tumbled from the ocean floor
cliffs eroding into bluffs

fierce storms reface the shore
break banksia, casuarina limbs
spun with vines into new habitats
for many lives unseen

the winter tide extremes
bring crabs and fish for gulls
while an osprey hangs above me
then dives into the foam

a purple jellyfish is beached
fat tentacles strewn along the sand
its vibrance matching fragments
from our plastic world

bright red, turquoise and blue
in forty years of looking
I had not seen before
this rubbish we abandon

the ocean's new offering
there will be more and more
found in the catch of fishermen
the food we all devour.