From This Island


From this island the shale-grey sea
is the same sea that appears

from that island over there:
whale-black by shade of cloud

or by evening light a bar of gold
level on windless water.

It is the same sea I gaze upon here
with my knees in a swamp of sphagnum

where the bog slumps down.
Sulphuric bubbles make space for my feet

till they bump stone like the bones of a rotten beast.
On this island arctic air

cramps my hands as they rest
rheumatic on sodden wood.

Clegs strike and assail my bare shoulder.
Rooted like a wind-bent tree I stare

at reflections on the altering water:
the volcanic vent of the sun

under ice-cap moon in salty blue.
On this island bracken scratches my thighs as I move on.

I come through forest where spruce prickles
and drips dampen cloth.

The rain falls like freezing glass.
I walk till I come to the cliff and can go no further,

marooned on this island.
The face I bear to the slanting light

is a different face
from the seal's face that stares back with calm black eyes

from its weight-bearing home.
This island is not the same as that island over there

where the slim pharos flares and gulls
line the through-draft on their island,

nor the same where stags roar over the sound
from their shore of sand,

who by night dine on globe flowers and the leaves of tangy sorrel.
This island is not the same

as that island
where I would dwell if I could

to gaze on the sea
as it shifts from shale to jade green;

the same sea
that finds its way thus far inland

and surrounds with its inlets,
fingering their way into awareness

and invading my darkest dreams with silver light,
taunting with warmth drained from the sun

that I cannot meet with my skin nor teeth bite.
This island has its own history and cannot be other than it is.

Its berries are bitter
even as I encounter

on looking out
an intractable delight.

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