Musings on Flows in the Flow Country
at a point where i hung
suspended between states
i travelled north to gaze
into cold eyes of peat bogs
and learn
about slow change
selfhood bending under
weight of ages
glacial
flows. but i
layered
am made of many
and through me
rips a new
quartzite
spine.
foinaven, finally.
tiny havens in
my hinterland
preserved –
nonetheless time
flows. bog cotton
rips away
unfinished
ideas. i move
in dragonflies
i, sticky
catch a midge
on my leaf-tongue
i consider
matters close to my skin
dubh, still
motion in rivulets
thought to thought
cnoc-and-lochan
heavy turf
draw me
i am sharp
i am scree
i am loose
rockfall
my wind-shrieked
headland
belongs to no one
mine is the unfettered
dive of osprey
plummeting
hopeful
loyal
wrath
Green Man
underlit by green
he flickers on the hill
trapped indoors he withers
i try to preserve him under glass but find
flecks of earth obscure
his visage, dark dots
that hold roots & spatter carpets
host tiny hordes that carry off
babies, arc men to grinning
deaths, swirl serenely in
streams.
with the quiet of centuries
of sediment he watches
me, stone hill fort
splintered tree trunk
heavy face of fog
Isle of Erraid
i crossed a vast causeway of white
sand to reach you, the sea
threatening
to rush and drown me
from all sides.
i kept my eyes on you
stony-faced, gull-topped.
eventually i touched you
fragments of shell
in the grooves
of my boots.
i scaled you, which was easy
for rocky though you are and riveted
with crags and gullies and
dizzying drops to foam
you are an island only thinking
of high peaks, really hunched low
but truly an island –
when the tide came in
it surrounded us
and i clung to you.
i lay in your arms
a while, looked
at the long horizon
with your eyes.
i spoke to the wheeling
gannets, and the wind
tore the voice from my throat
and scattered it.
but you heard me
reverberating in you
underground.
on the edge of my world, my island
not mine, only mine.
a row of whitewashed cottages
legacy of the lost lightkeeper
and i imagined staying, hiding
out the winter storms
spray stinging my cheeks
and long, low months of dark.
but i left you
when the waters parted long
enough for me to cross
that singing strip
of sand, my escape
warm lights in windows and
safety. i left you
alone, buffeted by the breakers
of the atlantic, all winter
long, untended.
my island, not mine
i am no lightkeeper.
but extend to me
your causeway –
i will return.
Lead Image by Kathy Hinde. Check out ‘The Flow Country‘ and ‘Deep Listening Walks‘.