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(For Naomi Farquhar) They come here in the Voar to go to Iceland white & loud & tired & all about the lochside they had flown from the North of Africa to rest on Loch Calder I stopped counting after maybe twenty each one was more fantastic than the last they honked for hours & I sat & watched them come & go then after listening with my eyes closed I opened them the loch was like the Cassiemire under snow & yet this peedie creature came towards me all gentle & wild & complete in herself she stared at me for at least half a minute just to see what side of life I was on then rose up in the air like a miracle she flew above me & around the loch then off into the blue North & was gone Naomi, much lately have I seen death but what I tell you is about life a swan on Loch Calder made it all clear she was my love she was my wife away in an instant away to the Arctic & I still here at some point in the future when I am black & she is still white I will follow her to Iceland into the cold & salty night

A Swan on Loch Calder

George Gunn

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I’ve a hankerin. A recht hankerin for french toast, the wye you makk it. Mines aye turns oot spongy, owerdeen, nae sae guid nae metter ma method - usin butter or olive oil, time soakin the breid, experimintin wae pans an livvels o heat, bit nivver recreatin yours. Aa shut ma een, aa smell it, aa the chef’s kissies, crisp edges, jist perfect. Picter ma mou openin tae ate it, slaverin, watchin you, watchin me, waitin for ma question ‘Babe, how dae ye mak it sae fine?’ Yer best Elvis replies, ‘Made wae a spoonfulla lurve Momma’ ye wink oot o existence. As aa open ma een, ma hert catches up. I’ve a hankerin, a recht hankerin, for you.

Hankerin

Jo Gilbert

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No more music now, not a note shall flow from that small house at Yesnabay just south of Skara Brae a silence now at Sandwick tucked in and bedded down amidst the coastal cliffs bricks built up like sea stacks a shelter there in Stromness from wind-crashed waves from the rugged, wild, enchanting and the impossible to tame. A pause, here for stories, for humour and for drams. As birds of every colour circle overhead, words wash and rush like rapids through our reeling heads as we do our best to content ourselves with silence.

Julie McNeill

Julie McNeill

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I was in a beach bar, a bit drunk, when two sparrows sped between branches, fretwork and the slack jawed gaze of children, and suddenly two lines of poetry entered my head, lines of unique cleverness. Keen to photograph the sparrows I used crumbs from some cheap pizza snack I had in the bottom of my bag, tossing them below my feet, then like an idiot rubbed my fingers into my eyes. I was blind and weeping into the wash of sky when I realised I had forgotten the words: they were not my words anymore anyway, but a blur of fawn and blue and air and biscuit, the poetry of sparrows.

The Poetry of Sparrows

Hugh McMillan

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