By Katharine Macfarlane
In their excitement,
the children have forgotten the acoustics of this place.
Voices raised, I hear, and over again
“Seall. Seall.”
Echoes peel back the years. Gille-brìghde
rolls forever and over,
endless calling: bi glic into waves,
a catch away from tears as the sea
breathes into foam.
There is a space between rocks
where a softness of sunlight settles,
coaxes thought,
sends forth a berried crab, heavy with new life.
She slides sideways from the softened kelp,
like secrets that spill across pillows in the night,
and pauses, eyes skyward, before returning to the dark.
“Seall. Seall.”
I sink deeper in my own crevasse,
willingly shrinking horizons to a gorge of lichen-starred rock,
a sliver of whitened sky.
Beyond this fissure is water, and rock, and sand —
but these are not choices.
Or, if they are, they are choices beyond our reach.
I remember best “bi glic”, not least-worst:
when sand was soft, rock stood firm.
“Seall. Seall.”
For a second longer I stare
at the unknowing sky.
“Seall. Seall.”
There is gladness yet
that in this shifting world,
this era of insecurity,
where land is sometimes sea
and water-filled rock is sky reflected
that even here,
these voices find wonder.
There is gladness yet.
I pull myself from the abyss
as the earth replies to the children…
“Seall, bi glic.”