Macassan Discovery.(Poem)

MACASSAN DISCOVERY

Pobassoo had made six or seven voyages from Macassar to this coast, within the preceding twenty years ... but had never seen any ship here before. --Matthew Flinders, Cape Wilberforce, 17 Feb. 1803

 
   I'd assumed shipwreck, 
   the islands closing in 
   like towering screens, 
   cutting out the sky. 
   On Vanderlin, rubbish left by Asiatics: 
   a wooden anchor with one fluke, 
   three boat rudders of violet wood, 
   remains of blue cotton trousers. 
   On Bentinck's Island, a broken earthen jar, 
   stumps of trees felled with an iron axe, 
   the spoor of imagined lives. 
 
   ...