“The Cleaving at Devil’s Kitchen”


In Tasman’s throat where the dolerite yawns,
A cleft like a curse, where the sea’s teeth gnaw—
The Devil’s Kitchen, carved by wrath,
Where salt and sorrow share a path.


They say the cliffs remember screams,
Of seals and sharks in tangled dreams,
Of pirates’ bones and devils fed,
Of shrieks that echo from the dead.


The Southern Ocean stirs the ***,
A spectral broth in basalt caught,
Each wave a ladle, each gust a spell,
Each echo tolling like a bell.


Some say the cliffs were cleaved by kin,
Of lines once lost, now drawn within,
And here, where nature rends the stone,
The lore of rupture finds its throne.


A trench of memory, deep and wide,
Where ancestors and ghosts collide,
The wind recites a generation’s name,
Then hurls it back from whence it came.


So if you walk the cliffside track,
And feel the sea wind at your back,
Know this chasm holds more than foam—
It’s where the broken find their home.







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