There are films

          of a cherished coast

92,900 square metres of cliff and stone

turned sensuous avalanche

billowing as it met the sea

 

          of a tousle-haired man standing

unfazed beneath a wuthering sky,

a gyre of clouds around him

and his vast sheets of white:

half event, half monument

 

Later there would be wrapped

archipelagos and palaces

          absurd cloth-covered epics

a love letter in impassioned fence script

running between states

          the heartbreaking beauty of

orange furoshiki trees

partitioning mountains

 

The memory

of this world turned gallery

is a reminder of what

was beneath

 

          and perhaps it’s time

to wrap the coasts again—

trees, rivers, habitats—

in a gesture of faith

and love

tied with bows

          of soft biodegradable rope

 

 

Note: Christo and Jeanne-Claude created the world’s largest sculpture at Little Bay, Sydney in 1969. The project was called ‘Wrapped Coast’.