These days, the salt of Sydney Harbour mixes

a freshwater Parramatta River cocktail

as a cat creeps, sweeps in

rubs and scratches the Cockatoo Island wharf

The crowd in slow motion morning

shuffles off to set up camp, wander in the past

others, city bound sail on towards skyline

and the arching bridge

Visitors dwarfed by rusting remnants of industry

a new tribe, where once

the spirit ancestors of the Wangal clan

fished in the time of a different dreaming

This island of many incarnations

inhabited by too many nameless ghosts

sulphur-cresteds scarce now, a phalanx of cranes

stand like titan birds, beaks ready to peck prey

Its own massive art installation, cliffs cut away

the grand scale of brick, iron, sandstone

where Norfolk convicts toiled, turbines roared

Voyager, Vampire and an Empress came into being

The past echoes through empty workshops, cells, slipways

but if all those stories were declaimed together

a cacophony of deafening voices

would haunt the casual tourists send them packing

- after Cockatoo Island panorama: Sutherland Dock, 2006, Jane Bennett