Pelicans lived in the bay somewhere, I read
but packed up and gone before coal overtook sail.
Oil is boss now polluting the water and
making things worse; slick flows in with the tide.
On a bollard painted green, the colour of hope
I sit waiting for a feather to flutter down
from the sky to signal change; twi twi and karang
have comeback to hatch, nobody asked them.
Who will coax the pelicans back to dead coral
reefs in Bananes Bay, pockmarked in raw sewerage?
Fish eggs hatch new species, inedible like
bochay and canmo, blame it on development.
The new economics of direct foreign
investment favours rich outsiders with gift
of the gab to bramble naïve politicians
to allow them to export every black cent
of profit disguised as loan repayments
leaving my poor country poor—oh what horrible
waste, wasting years on education, while waiting
in peace for the pelicans’ return to the bay.