they never saw the sea, those 2 pilgrims
yet they saw the tides rise and fall
the mangroves an apparition in a fevered dream were swallowed up in the high tide
and declared themselves like stark ghosted figurines
at the low water mark in a nightmare
they smelt the sea
they heard the boomers and saw the wild life preening in the sky
as if in mockery
crocodiles snapping at them like alien creatures guarding their domain in jealousy
with hideous green eyes blinking lethal above the waterline
they never saw the sea Burke and Wills
and they never came back
Flynnpoetry 
The bitterness of it all ! The failure, the transience…! You could look at it from the dispassionate and barren overhead moon’s perspective – overseeing this ephemeral folly, not only causing the obvious ocean tides at the mangroves , but the land tides over the whole dusty dry landscape of their entire journey, marching on, after they had finally gone
Sent from my iPad
LikeLike
Such a poignant story Marek, they were farewelled with great fanfare from Royal Park Melbourne, and had no idea they would perish in the baking hot desert Mount Hopeless in the distance gave little comfort.
The aborigines offered them seedcakes made from Nardoo probably poisonous to their European stomachs, their would be rescuers found the campfire still warm in some final irony.
The funeral procession in Melbourne was grand but sombre, members of the Independent Orders of the Oddfellows, Rechabites and Foresters trailing in their wake.
LikeLike