This collecting; this laying out of treasures. A piece of watercolour paper cut to fit the sill of a window, then each object placed in a sequence. Stones and shells at first, then slivers of wood, a crab, a starfish. Eventually, small objects from inside the Fishing Station. Strange and so different away from their location. Strange to be displayed as distinctly separate rather than a gregarious jumble of ‘finds’. Their shadows fell with such delicacy across the paper, turning as the light turned, sharp-edged now, smudged later. I would catch her sitting before these collections, observing their properties as the window projected different qualities of light with the passing day. I had them to myself in the early mornings when I crept from our bed into the grey blue light of the dawn. I would sit before them with a china mug of tea feeling my body come to terms with its own self having left its shared part of me in bed. Every day seemed more precious than the previous. As the calendar moved relentlessly forward I realised we had begun to speak in whispers, beyond whispers in fact. I would look at her and speak silently in my head, as I do when I ‘say’ our silent grace, when I close my eyes and pause before the delight of a meal shared. She would nod, or answer with only the barest movement of her petalled lips. The most delicate stroke of my arm was a poem; a hand resting against the neck a chapter of novel. The volumes of words that we had between us come to own tumbled away into the machair. And living slowed right down. Every movement had a graceful turn, bend or flow to it. If we stood close to each other there was rarely the need to venture into an embrace. For once we were not about to part, we became completely, utterly together. We would listen to each other breathe until even that became absorbed into the sea's great breath we could feel from the cottage windows ruffling the waters.

like a monkey at a temple

I want an immediate response from the world

my brother-in-law fights the same depression

he turned into a Cowboy

I stayed an Indian.

Back in Queens I see a man across the street

he's in an Andy Capp hat and twead coat
he used to hem my pants (he's retired now)

he knows my thoughts but doesn't recognize me unless I say hello first

see that ******* the stoop, the one with her hair veiled over her face, staring at her iphone as to a shrine

I've seen my mother-in-law bow down like that at Meher Baba's Samadhi

I should not have been watching her take darshan

in front of her Lord - in supplication - she folded into herself like a napkin

on the way back, we stayed at the Leela and had a lot to drink before we flew home

I wish she knew how lucky I felt being with her - praying and drinking

but last night she called and couldn't remember a thing

it pains me she is losing her memory

I  had to repeat again and again, 'yes, I have your ticket and passport'

or 'remember we flew in together and now we are going back'.

so naturally our conversations return to her growing up on a farm in Virginia; the second oldest to four brothers, her swimming in a creek and charming all the boys, and leaving home at seventeen to dance with Margaret Craske in New York City (how she loved Miss Craske).  

she married a priest who crusaded for the poor in the Lower East Side;  pregnant with her first daughter (and me, having the saving grace to have married that daughter) she met Meher Baba -  a meeting that changed her course and late in life she became a Psychologist (a PhD at 74!).   

her natural graciousness was born of the wild flowers of Machair (her people are from the Hebrides),
her love of dance, now transposed and expressed in a light and buoyant outlook, made all a fools mimicry disappear like morning vapor on a Maharashtrian plateau ...

my fortune seeing that.

one day she will forget me and the world and not come back

or when she does we will have a certainty of meeting once before.

XXII

hooded boy
kite aloft
duned beach
turquoise sea
uncertain wind
hard horizon
variegated rocks
suddenly sunshine

XXIII

clouds sailing away
from a sunset
great banks of reflected
light caressing
the heavens expecting stars
far distant a lighthouse pencil-thin
awaits its first flash into the night



XXIV

on the horizon’s rim
far St Kilda waits
two islands one a ****
of rock basalt-black
a stack bird-coated
sheer with noise perpetual

morning boat slicing
a myriad blue aimed
purposely between the two
faint shapes seaward

XXV

Donald
parish priest
of Bornish
died 1905
30 years of age
3rd year of his
priesthood

his Celtic cross
standing before
three hills
of South Uist
‘next the sea
and the call of birds
a life barely lived
resting in peace

XXVI

after the swim
a warm beach
soft fine sand
between the toes
a steady breeze
off the sea
with a coverlet of light
stretching horizon-ward

XXVIII

six geese
fallen from the sky
in the roughest weather
(more likely shot, he said, and
dumped from a farmer’s sack)
feathers bones and intricate
webs of cartilage lie
on these quiet rocks

XXIX

girl with *****
digs out channel
for the boat to pass
to its winter home
a long task a project
for this late-summer week
she has at home
away from the desk
measuring the silence
in shovelfuls
whilst thinking
of what is and what might
be then and soon

***

sea loch
maze of water
****-mantled
granite holding
the moor-side in place

a low cloud rests
curtain-like
on the heights
where deer lie
ready for the stalking

XXXI

white horses
chomp at the bay’s
bit while the Barra
ferry waits
wind everywhere
this bright morning

XXXII

impossible grasses
jiggle on their slim stems
planted in the immediate sand
before the machair takes control
windy today but sun lightens
the shell detritus lining the beach

so fine these calciated shapes
rendered perfect in fractal forms
tossed and turned but so precise
when seen alone
held in the hand

meanwhile there are wind waves
across the dune-land grass
nodding to the facing sea
as the water  foam-faced
breaks irresponsibly across
the Sound.