Bob Orr

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.