At times the gold bars ripple
Aimless on the sand,
Where the sunlight streams through the dancing waves
Into the dancing land;
And there she would sometimes wait for me,
My secret lover in the sea.
She whispered to me of her dancers,
Dancing their whole lives through.
She murmured, ‘They worship their God the Sun
As they dance in their ball of blue.”
Then she would lead me by the hand,
And she was the soul of the dancing land.
She showed me the ancient treasures,
Stained with the stain of blood,
Where many a golden crucifix
Lies gleaming in the mud;
They silently told us of hopes now cold,
Forgotten hopes and fears of old.
But I sought for another treasure,
A sacred treasure called Oil;
It’s found in the graves of the dancing ones,
It’s the sunlight trapped by their toil.
So when from our drilling rig fluttered
The ragged flag of a flare
My lover slipped free her hand as she muttered,
“Let your vandal race beware.”
She turned with her flashing eyes, “Beware”;
With flashing eyes and flaming hair.
Now when the sad kelp lashes,
Streaming in the night,
When the darkness surges blind with silt
And the dancers have fled in fright,
I can faintly hear her crying to me,
My lover alone in the heaving sea.
RAE , 18 October 1975
At times the gold bars ripple
Aimless on the sand,
Where the sunlight streams through the dancing waves
Into the dancing land;
And there she would sometimes wait for me,
My secret lover in the sea.
She whispered to me of her dancers,
Dancing their whole lives through.
She murmured, ‘They worship their God the Sun
As they dance in their ball of blue.”
Then she would lead me by the hand,
And she was the soul of the dancing land.
She showed me the ancient treasures,
Stained with the stain of blood,
Where many a golden crucifix
Lies gleaming in the mud;
They silently told us of hopes now cold,
Forgotten hopes and fears of old.
But I sought for another treasure,
A sacred treasure called Oil;
It’s found in the graves of the dancing ones,
It’s the sunlight trapped by their toil.
So when from our drilling rig fluttered
The ragged flag of a flare
My lover slipped free her hand as she muttered,
“Let your vandal race beware.”
She turned with her flashing eyes, “Beware”;
With flashing eyes and flaming hair.
Now when the sad kelp lashes,
Streaming in the night,
When the darkness surges blind with silt
And the dancers have fled in fright,
I can faintly hear her crying to me,
My lover alone in the heaving sea.
RAE , 18 October 1975