ORKNEY SEQUENCES
1
The wind sings between the grey walls of the town.
It sings of long seas turned to green fields.
Small birds scatter and reform in flowing air.
Islands turn to cloud and then dissolve in the driving rains.
2
Perhaps the first thing you notice is the soft lilt of the land:
The way the colours slip from brown greens to sapphire greys,
And the sound of the waves, a ceaseless singing (that is also in the quiet voice
Of the people who slip between worlds and grey streets
In and out of tinkling tea shops, the warm must of cosy bars,
Turned around through doors by the sharp wind and its slap of cold rain).
3
This wind is not to be escaped from..
It has come this far from a world away.
Though you may wait awhile in the warm quiet,
You must leave to face the remorseless thrust of it.
4
So many miles crossing the earth.
So many miles across the air.
So many miles over the seas,
To the first hearth, the sparking fires,
The strong stone vulvas of the rolling lands
Arching green, gentle green from the green seas
From which the dead do dream,
To which the living return like swallows,
Like swallows sifting their songs, the scything memories.
The dead own all the songs, the songs feed the dead
And keep the fires of the living warm and strong.
5
Deserted farmsteads scattered the slopes
Weathered grey skulls, window eyes dark and sightless
Broken jaw doorways toothless gaping
Slate pate roofs smashed open by war-hammer winds.
They mark the passage of years and the bite of seasons.
6
By whatever ways, whatever ways we come to them
Waiting diffident or with curious eyes to see what they have become.
Until we feed the fire, until we feed the warmth now the long memories,
Until then they are remote as stars whose names are not known,
Whose patterns are not picked out by pointing fingers.
We move towards them and they, waiting or not,
Wrapped up in their own watching.
There is nothing left here but scattered teeth
And broken skulls, voiceless gaping jaws
And the endless wind across the low green fields.
It was better than this, it was better.
Words piled up in cairns,
Words piled up and stones laid out.
7
The central hearth
Where stars burn
Where the gathered starlight burns.
The wind is in a minor key.
Ghosts of footsteps heading north.
This is the last feast
Before the world changes.
Before the old doors are sealed.
Before we throw away our names
And watch for new signs.
Bone by bone
We disassemble our gods
—
simonhlilly 