Hari Kyo, 8th February

Into the panna cotta I plunge paperclips –
                they’ve held me together in a paper storm,
                                                      helped me to make sense of sequences.

I push in my empty Mitsubishi uni-ball –
                it’s written itself out, telling of a long lost warrior
                                                          smiling towards me in a storm.

I plant a line of post-its with out-dated notes –
                        ‘noble, elegant, gracious’,
                                      ‘turn right at the B2214 Avery Hill Road’.

I pitch a cracked coaster,
          where lemon and ginger tea, and coffee,
                                have balanced fact from fiction day to day.

And last – a hair slide in two halves.
            It used to clear my brow
                              to dwell on purple hills, and valleys caked in snow.

Hari Kyo is the Japanese Festival to old and broken needles for Kimono makers; also a time to value the small, everyday objects of daily life.

Noss

It’s not easy to photograph an island –
        the spongy sphagnum moss beneath your feet,
    mauve marsh violets beside a stream,
          a gannet shutting wings against fuselage
just before he hits the sea.

The wide ewe wades along an ancient path
                about to birth her twins,
           she’s safe on the west side of the dry stone dyke.
        To the east great skuas pose,
    flagging their high striped wings above the buffeted moor.
They’re keen to feed on newborn lambs.

Lichens ring stones, three Op Art eider ducks
              settle on worn ledges shelving to the sea.
    Noss Sound laps and slaps the rocks
keeping Bressay at bay.