Slight change of nationality

[sheenaghpugh]

I'm now officially a Scottish poet. I thought it might take longer (I've only been living full-time in Shetland since 2009), but a poem of mine has made it into the online anthology Best Scottish Poems 2012. Quite chuffed about this. If Jack Charlton were still around, I'd have a go for the Irish football team on the strength of my Irish granny. Here's the poem:

The Eye

Across the bay, they’re building a house
with a glass wall, panes all the way up

into the gable, windows that wrap
around corners for a view as wide

as sea and sky, to take in Sumburgh Head,
Auriga, every passing vessel

and pod of orca, storm-force gales,
anvil clouds, the cliffs of Levenwick,

the waxing moon lighting a track
clear to Fair Isle. This huge eye,

lidless, unfillable, as hungry
for every last object it can rest on

as if it were mortal, knowing how soon
light goes by; how little time it has.

You can read the whole anthology (20 poems) here.

Comments

[justwolf.livejournal.com]

Beautiful poem. I love the eye being "lidless, unfillable" and the "waxing moon lighting a track". Wonderful images, and the last stanza is fantastic.

By the way, I picked up "Poetry Ireland News" the other day, and loved your article "Three Gentleman At Once" in it. I enjoyed your thought about becoming other people, and how limiting it would be not to do that.