Sixteen Ships

Sixteen Ships

~

What dreams they carried off

those sons and brothers, fathers, uncles

twenty thousand hearts squeezed to fists

as summer unwound beneath the Southern Cross

they sought Heaven’s Light to guide them north

through Suez to Gallipoli

where even eucalyptus oil could not medicate

shattered souls, nor eradicate the pain.

~

n.b. April is marked on the Australian calendar by ANZAC Day, (25th April), a day set aside to remember the sacrifices made in World War One by Australian, Torres Strait Islanders and Aboriginal and New Zealand people.

New Railway Pier saw the first departures of volunteer soldiers in the Australian Imperial Force who travelled to Europe in October, 1914 to fight in that war.

This liminal setting then witnessed the hospital ships returning from Southampton, of which the last departure from England was delayed by the 1919 Spanish ‘Flu pandemic.

After those terrible events the pier became the arrival point for many emigrants from war-torn Europe, who saw more hopeful prospects on southern shores.

Now known as Princes Pier, this is indisputably an in-between place.

~

n.n.b.  Day 4 is all about liminal spaces; edgelands.

~

CLP 04/04/2021