The Bay

A sort of dislodged washed-out bay

we fell into after hours of hill torture.

No terns or boats, no breeze to speak of,

but laces of white water moving fast and,

farther off, the shattered hem of a ness.

Spilled before it, a wide green stony spread

and the afterthought of winter crofting:

salt white walls, salt white doors, copper roofs,

turf-piled yards and sweet tails of smoke.

Most things will end, the mind in time,

work and teeth and knees and hips, but there

among the still weather and homesteads

all the short-lived shadows you could know

hold their ounce of love before the land runs out.

Christopher Hamilton-Emery is a poet and founder of Salt Publishing