Islay, Aberdeen, Lothian, Brisbane, Pukerua Bay
I saw
a dipper in and out of a stream pouring through composition into song. I saw bull kelp on Islay make a shore like my shore. I saw where my great aunt stepped out in her stylish cinch-waist coat, out of private violence into the hovering institutions of the street. I saw the language inside my language – yolk, shell, nest, foreknowledge: a chaos of need, then flight. I saw at the top of a rise, the round church so the devil can’t hide in the corners. I circled it, couldn’t get inside. I recalled my son’s favourite Attenborough clip: a snow leopard running like milk or glacier down a mountain, and mine – us side by side in front of it, on the L-shaped couch. I recalled my daughter after school broke up in winter, woollen hat and jacket hurled on, paddling the kayak across the bay. No life jacket and going like a bat out of hell. A quick wave. I remind myself to finish The Divine Comedy – I’ve never yet made it out of hell. The dolphin-backs arcing out of pitch. The hooks. And I’m going to say again that I saw the dipper, and I saw bog cotton – outside of a poem for the first time. Leaning in. Listening.
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