In 2013, a news story about a ‘Nessie’ sighting this side of the globe, reminded me of something I wrote a while ago for my sister-in-law’s very popular travel blog about Perth; http://perthdailyphoto.blogspot.com.au Every day she uploads photos she’s taken in and around Perth, Western Australia (she particularly loves our pretty city) while discovering new and interesting places.
On May 30th 2013, she’d taken a fabulous photo at Mullalloo beach and wanted me to write something to go with the photo. Naturally, I was happy to oblige and sent a short poem back within half an hour. She was totally amazed with what I ‘saw’ in her frame.
The Surgeon’s Photo
Like that summer’s day, Nessie in her deepest loch
with itinerant Hugh Gray’s camera watching on shore,
bows her head to honour the sparkling blue
dancing in the sunlight between the stars.
Here in Mullaloo, she is a he whose strong arms
plunge out to sea, powering above possible danger
beneath relentlessly pulling liquid waves to his chest
– a celebration of strength, youth and fearlessness.
Frances Macaulay Forde © 2013
#POEM:TheSurgeonsPhoto #PerthDailyPhoto #LochNessMonster #Nessie #Poem
Perth Words... exploring possibilities. 
Thought you might like to meet this Nessie too!
Nessie Speaks
My lake’s face silvers under the song
of an evening thrush and from these depths
I hear the bird, bubble-borne towards me like a myth.
The doubting time.
Grey is the most I dare know of daylight,
screened though it is in an algal wash,
a timid haze of bright mysteries that disturb me.
My confidence is the loch’s cold gloom,
the olive squint of weeded pike, sand caves,
mud’s smoky movement, iced darkness
beyond which lies the imagined world of men,
sliced in a violence of white light,
of shrieking dreams, uncomprehended demons.
Slowly I stir, I stir, and banish them.
Harry Owen
(from ‘Small Stones for Bromley’, Lapwing Publications, 2014)
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Wow, thank you so much for sharing this poem, Harry. I am both humbled and privileged with your wonderful words. 🙂
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I echo Frances’s wow!!
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You wrote “The Surgeon’s Photo” in half an hour? Very impressive! It’s a wonderful poem, particularly that second stanza in its depiction of youth and stregnth.
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Thanks, Liz… although I have now edited the original in this post. (Should have done that before posting the original.)
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*strength
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