Secessionists form into fingers flattening themselves,
sliding ever so slowly across sand, eager, curious –
this is not a competition but a hungry investigation.

One ventures further and further, then another.
It’s like watching, from a long way up, the slow formation,
say, of archipelagos and fjords along the coast of Norway.

Fingers of insurgence slide over the waterlogged sand like oil.
Vanguard outriders can’t contain their curiosity –
if shallow water could sprint it is sprinting and yet it takes its time,

it has all the time in the world to slip into each footprint it finds –
the anchor in a gull’s webbed foot; arrows of the blue crane’s trail;
the pygmy imprint of dotterel and hooded plover,

now infilling a canal along the stroke of a wallaby tail,
the punctuation of each twinned pawprint either side.
Hungry for sensation water curls into every recess it can find,

learns the kinetics of a marram grass etching,
drawing circles around itself.
Water learns the sanguinity of a small dog and the deeper

knowing of a large brute’s weight. Water explores each recess, each life:
mollusc trail and beetle track, the toes – one by one – of a human,
ball of foot, instep; water carnally fills the curve of a heel.

A downhill run over the sand’s hump, the insurgents have a hunch
where they are heading now. Under the dunes the glassy creek
is waiting. In the distance the dogged surf goes on

with its offensive, crashing and crashing, it wants to outdo itself.
The creek’s still water stretches as far as it is able, extends an index finger,
the first insurrectionist reaches out to touch.