The Sunday Post

Hullo ma wee blog,

Drifter. {1950.}

The long net, tassled with corpses, came
Burning through the water, flowing up.
Dogfish following it to the surface
Turned away slowly to the deep.

The Daffodil squatted, slid ahead
Through the red kyle* with thirty crans*
Of throttled silver in her belly.
Her anchor snored amid its chains.
And memory gathered tarry splinters,
Put shadowy sparkles in her bag,
Slid up her sleeve the hills of Harris
And stole Orion and the Dog.

I sat with that kind thief inside me;
I sat with years I did not know
Heaped on my knees. With these two treasures
I sailed home through the Gaelic sea.

Norman MacCaig.
*narrows
*barrels