Lights

Photograph © Gerald England

LIGHTS

As midnight approaches

I stand with the dog

watching the embers

of a fire

dying on the beach.

Behind me are the lights

of several caravans.

Three cottages on

once-uninhabited Erraid,

Robert Louis Stevenson's

unhappy childhood home,

throw their light

across the Sound.

Beyond the black shapes

of sundry, rocky islets

are the bright lights of Iona

shining across the water

Earlier from the beach

we had watched the sun

set over I.,

each ray illuming

a pigeon-toe sky.

Now as morrow

becomes day

dog and master

settle to sleep

having seen.

© Gerald England

Composed: Fionnphort, 1st August 1984

Publications

1985 Periaktos (UK)
1989 Eavesdropper (UK)
1992 STEALING KISSES (Hyde, New Hope International)