Two poems from Flout
Wind Dog
A half-bitten smile,
a hesitant kiss,
a hand let slip
—Windoge, vindauga, wind-eye:
the wind is not content
only to have a voice.
Without sun,
without rain,
it cannot see or be seen.
Not a black hole
into which everything
is sucked, but an iris
flexing.
Note: ‘Wind dog’ is Scots for a broken rainbow.
Ultima Thule
(Hermaness)
You would think it’s so remote
that here you’d find peace.
Mist, the breath of bewitched Herma,
rises from the moor.
The only way-markers are wooden planks
laid over the squelch and suck of bog.
I pause, afraid of bonxies,
shadows lifting out of the peat.
How much further north must I go
to find a song so sweet that I plunge
into its icy waters, forgetting
I cannot swim?
(Note: ‘bonxie’ (Shetland dialect) – great skua)
Stephanie Green‘s pamphlet Flout, HappenStance, 2015, is inspired by Shetland folklore, landscape and culture and was launched at StAnza, March 2015. Her pamphlet Glass Works (Cat’s Pyjamas Publications, 2005) was shortlisted for the Callum MacDonald Award.
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