The rain is penetrating Oban and the circus has gone home. The lions and wildcats have gone home through the papers and advertisements. The seats are emptying at the mouth of the shore, in front of the houses in front of the pub – rain falling through the midst of the heavy salt of the sea.
Shall I raise a town of paper, with coloured lions on the wall, with great fierce tigers, and the wheel of music spinning?
Shall I raise a sky of paper? Clouds of paper, white lights?
Shall I make myself into paper, with my verses being cut on paper?
Tonight the sea is like an advertisement, book after book shining.
My shadow is running down to the sea. My skin is red and green.
Who wrote me? Who is making a poetry of advertisements from my bones? I will raise my blue fist to them. – ‘A stout Highlander with his language.’
The circus has gone home. They have swept the sawdust away. The pictures of beasts have gone. The rain is falling on the bay. The wheel has gone off by itself. The season is over. The lion is running through sunlight. He has left the rain behind his feet.
The big bell began to toll. The church has been opened. I sat down inside it in my mind and saw on the window, instead of Nazareth and Christ, worn earth and sawdust, a lion moving in the explosive circle of Palestine without cease.