The Flower That Is A Talking Fish

The second of my unconventional coastal flowers is the Talking Fish.

For the Talking Fish to be considered a flower I must redefine flower even more loosely as something orange.

That's ridiculous. I'll try again. Something that stands upright on one leg and has a head....and is orange.

The Talking Fish is another piece of esplanade art to be found at Seacliff. It has a message. The government is building a desalination plant in the gulf, which will result in saltier water. There are those who think this will be unpleasant for the fish.

Look now, at the Talking Fish. He is stencilled in black onto a sand coloured shade cloth tacked to the wire fence beside one of the sandhill exits. His body is coloured orange. He stands upright on a bifurcated tail fin. He looks angry. A speech bubble comes out of his open mouth. The words in the speech bubble are, I can't live in brine, Desal is not fine.

It is disturbing on so many levels. Firstly, the artistic. The orange colour reappears in ghostly form behind the fish in some sort of blotting accident. The final 'n' and 'e' are badly blurred, and the words are placed too low down in the bubble.

Secondly, the Talking Fish is obviously a goldfish, and they don't live in the gulf anyway.

Thirdly, the most disturbing thing of all....maybe it's just me but.....I can't live in Brine, Desal is not fine....okay it rhymes, and scans, with five syllables in each line, but somehow it doesn't seem to.

That is all I'll say,
Until the next day.

Two Days at the Coast

We went to West Beach on Saturday. The sea was the colour of prune juice. An ancient sea. A Mediterranean wine dark sea. The waves lifted and stretched before crashing. That was the moment you could see the prune juice and oxidized apple, with brownish white foam on the top.

The foam cascaded from the wavetops in bubbles that fetched up in pink scummy heaps mixed with seaweed and shivered in the wind.

That was Saturday.

On Sunday we went to Seacliff. We didn't go down on the sand. I had my camera and thought I'd take photos of flowers in the sandhills, and call them Flowers of the Coast. Some of the flowers were conventional flowers. Gazanias, portulacas, and stocks.

Then there were the unconventional flowers. The cat's head, the talking fish, the rusty solar pole and the little girl in the pink skirt. I shall elaborate tomorrow.

No, I have space here. I shall do the cat.

The Cat's Head Flower. This was......

No. I won't. It's getting bitty. It will be better if I do it tomorrow.