Sunday – the empty square
the locked bar
three fishing boats
tethered at the pier
a portacabin bank
open once a week
an empty road
between level barley-fields
fulmar on its nest
in the ruins of a church
a meadow of yellow iris
where sheep and gravestones sleep
shimmer of marram
under the midsummer sky
curlew rolling its name
purely purely over the silence
a long walk on a ridge of sand
between back-to-back bays
the cairn’s open eye
looks east across the sea
This was written on the island of Sanday in Orkney. It was published in the anthology ‘The Listening Walk’, 2013.
Recent Comments