I called back down the unawakened
dawn of the Tasman sea and along the East
Coast from the pre-dawn light of
my sleep, I called out Bob Orr
soft as the punch of a howitzer to the
Hokianga harbour & still further over the
Waikatos billiard-table green paddocks.
I hailed Bob to the Great Barrier
Island & Orr to the Little Barrier,
but no answer came chasing after. I
sought you down the Harbour Heads &
Hauraki Gulf then all about the Waitemata.
I found a Thunderhead big as a
container-load of sorrows & nowhere hard
by were you toiling. Bob Orr I
called from Meola Reef to the outlandish
fishing-tackle cranes along the docks;
to Jellicoe wharf, Bledisloe wharf,
Marsden wharf, Captain Cook wharf to the
Admiralty Steps hoping I would find
you gazing out upon the glaucous slick of
trawlers, or catch you guiding a snub-
nosed tug under the Western Viaduct.
Bob Orr I called down the unending
roadsteads to Motutapu & Rakino Islands,
back behind the wave screen at Okahu Bay
to Freemans and St Marys Bay. And as
I called into the Schooner Tavern &
sought the drear interior of the Wynyard
Tavern & the sailors talk told me
you had fitted and trimmed your craft
against every dire prediction to set sail
on that other sea, Bob, the one that
has no name & no horizon & is drowning you.