I
Holy Island, from north shore and Emmanuel Head,
a single distant patrol of gannets, network foraging
two metres above the surface of the sea;
yellow-washed crown and neck,
dipped bill, grey and conical, a sight-line
for a focused forensic stare,
tail dipped behind a sleek white bodyline,
gliding,
and to a rhythm, black wing tips use the infrastructure
of the air, currents rising from the water, invisible;
instinctually the birds fly forward
to a feeding ground, where fluid water patterns
hold a meaning, upswelling a shoal of passing fish;
there they rise and dive, push the prey deeper and
use the lifting currents to swallow it whole,
underwater, on the upward glide; and then float
and then fly.
Holy Island, on north shore, at Emmanuel Head
I am heavy on a bench, a dune, a trunk the sea disgorged.
At St Abbs, the deeper water meets the igneous and
sedimented rocks, andesite lava, greywacke,
red sandstone, sand and gravel till,
ripples, waves, downwelling, swelling,
this ever-eddying water blending
cobalt blues and ocean greens, lapping,
overlapping, a fluid metamorphosis
of one into the other;
here the gannets’ foraging is populous,
limitless energies driving forays to and fro,
flightlines set, powering forward,
formation-banking, aeolian currents
incomprehensible to us, plotted only
through their gliding pathways back and forth;
on the cliff-top, feet planted on grass
covering soil, covering volcanic residue,
covering bedrock, solidity personified,
we visualise the currents, air and water,
and feel earth crumble in a dizziness
that we have lost our infrastructure
and are falling.
Body of Writing 