Home to the Hebrides 

Where are you running to
what are you looking for
rooting in other people’s abandonments

scraping time off the earth into spoil
for stone some sign of burning
a flicker of bone someone’s 

life to ponder their gut to digest 
through a slice of tooth
a peck of seed

What is it with this yearning
for remote punctuations in the sea’s 
gnarled page

as though the soul’s dark ink might talk
and you might hear more 
than the chatter of gannets

see more than waves unfurling
a whale puff
and disappear

Published in Ink Sweat & Tears, June 2020