At dawn the tide throws its hush
over the sandy shoulders of the harbour,

drains the slope of shells,
dropping dregs for the gulls to inspect.

In the dock, by a stack of crates,
three cranes bow their girdered necks east

as if in prayer. They have been folded all night,
a nest of dinosaurs awaiting the extinction

of their vital urge. The fuel fattens in their tubes,
their batteries corrode and their skins tatter

in the cluttered yard. Under a vinyl lean-to a clutch of white hardhats
might hatch their legs in the lengthening day. The cranes are wired

for wakefulness, for the sudden surge into sky —
the hydraulic heave of unrelenting unquestioned purpose.

Everything is organised through a ritual of gravity and cable.
They are devoted to the lever

and hopeful, having heard the bang of the perimeter fence,
the clang of its chain, and a kettle being boiled in the hut.