Pewter

Awakening to the metallic chatter of late starlings
on Rosemount's mossy rooftops,
the night's pewter veil lifts slowly with the fog.

An old garden at the bottom of a seaside hill,
derelict, abandoned; beautiful,
and all around tourists capture loosening
moments on film.

Loneliness crept through my bones
and dragged me into the ivy,
and there he was, sound echoing out
in that folkloric way
-woodsman/ bird; woodpecker.

I allowed the red of him
to reflect out
the last of the scene's winter rays,
before the morning came. 

Mayday

http://vimeo.com/28854599

'One Mayday I awoke in a field on the isle of Mull . . . '

Garden

Two blackbirds flit in and out
of dead, fallen branches,
in a garden filled with
brand new colour
and a Belfast sink.
Ferns, green and hardy,
trail down from the roof
and the black iron window bars
have started to peel;
beautiful rust outside these
dove grey walls.

The daffodils have begun
to wilt, 
yellow giving way to blue.
Harebells find pathways 
through the woods
and I see apple blossoms
in a new light.
We talk of being children
in an era long gone
and I can smell sea-salt
on my open hands.

Heidagaes

Eyes shut to the yellow-grey glow
above the icy, new-born land,
I feel the sea mist rise up from the South.

One tin hut below us
- the only sign of our print upon the land.

Fyll encircle the cliff, returning to colonial nests
in a cacophony of guttural cries;
ownership and instinct.

The rain has made the lichen seem brand new;
wet orange paint on old, decaying wood.
The smell of thyme fills the air
and I find arctic river beauty;
spongy and filled with light.

Stillness takes hold, delicately,
and words are lost to the North Atlantic breeze
that carries a perfect skein of Heidagaes
above this folkloric cliff.

Tjaldur

Waiting for the snow to calm,
The land, white and lunar
beneath volcanic heights,
holds its breath.

We journey to the very South
of this Northern Island
in search of barren solitude
and silence.

Water gushes down,
falling like moonlight onto black rocks.
But we can hear no sound at all
from the cliff face,
Until oyster-catchers
undo the bright, still silence;
beautifully.

Alft

I knew that there would be mountains.

Vast, volcanic; violet hues grasping at grey snow-light.

The rift, too, long imprinted on the map on my inside, certain;

almost known.

The moss, botanical expression of courage

alongside memories of horses, brown and wild.

This land of fire and ice; etched in columns of basalt on my mind.

Pink-footed geese fill the fields

and fly powerfully above me; filling the sky with wonder.

And then they appear, against a backdrop 

of wooden Church and cotton bog-land;

elusive and melancholic as the dancing lights .

Painted cream and yellow by the snow and sun;

back from Alba.

No words can frame this moment.

I will hold it, like ice in my hands,

until the Winter comes back home.

West

Iceland

Iceland, Spring 2014.

Words and drawings.

Milk flower

February, once more,
and the World is hopping/
outside of one circle,
into the next;
new beginnings.

The sky- red peach
-awakening to the
deep call of crows
at the first frost of morning.

Saint Bride has carried
back the light
on the wings of the oyster catcher
and the islands
are painting their hills
green in gratitude.

I fill my room with lavender
and sea thistle
in brown medicine bottles;
A botanical apothecary of life.

You send words to me
across a stormy sea
and I remember the wild flowers
of Inch island
in August's haze.

But the light is changing/
resurfacing/ reflecting
and all around of us
will be translated
into other words;
written on the wind.

I dress in white, again
and welcome back the snowdrops;
graciously