Isn't it wholly natural that the notebook I bought in Scotland specifically not for the purpose of recording to-do lists and important dates and addresses for job interviews ended up collecting dust and crumbs at the bottom of my bag chock-full of to-do lists and important dates and addresses for job interviews?
I finally dug it out today and here are the fruits of my labor, courtesy of the Scottish landscape.
Orphan Bird
Memory prickles,
swan may outrun
cross-country trains.
Dreams tickle,
wing beats jump the track
at light speed.
Reality pickled.
Only a blood-stained grate
and the re-occurrence of
flying or falling?
Stuck in Drumnadrochit
Stuck in
Drumnadrochit,
I would be wiser
to have booked
a return ticket.
Hunt
I saw a Scottish stag along the road to Lochluichart.
Exposed, he was aware the meat wrapped 'round his bones was fresh;
Blue veins beneath his sinew played a pretty poacher's mark.
Each contour carved a target with the bull's eye at his breast;
Velvet eyes sunk deep inside his skull, down to that fleet heart
And amid the muffled drumming of its chambers, came to rest.
Now blind, wild instinct thawed his limbs and lit a whiplashed spark
That dwarfed the sun dipped, dappled 'cross the watercolored west.
For sustenance or sport he was desired in whole and part
But his joints and spirit both were made to fly, pursued and pressed;
Head upraised to greet the twilight, he shot into the dark.
Fingers traced my own throat's outlines, dressed in hairless flesh,
And the same blood tattoo beat there to defy the whistling dart
Of a nameless hunter poised atop these universal crests,
Our golden hills, that in the night, loom vacant, chill, and stark.
