The Question
My heart I made a place for you,
My home I made a space for you,
At sunrise I would wake with you,
By sunset I would ache for you.
Why question my emotion
In light of this devotion?
When passions surge and break with you,
And all I am I stake with you.
Whalesong
Sun streams down
Through blue to a
Spangling point,
Deep.
Still shade below
Could not be life, as I
Flail, graceless, on the surface.
Haunting purrsong
Grows louder;
Timeless, melodic moan
To sound the world I’m here,
Come to me.
Come to my darkling piece of blue
And know my peace.
Rising shadow knows my
Feeble frame and eyes deep inside.
As I wonder, shallow,
At his calm clarity;
Accepting, in ageless wisdom.
John Irvine
A stranger gave John Irvine fifteen quid
To take him to West Lingua.
Slow daybreak on their breath,
The two men sailed in silence,
Leaving flickering Whalsay for Lingua’s dark shore.
John was glad for the cash;
But he’d seen this man’s look in other men,
And guessed he was a suicide.
Ha’else would wan’ three days in that manless, Godless place,
No’but stones and dust?
