The natives of St Kilda were reputed to use gannet skin as footwear.
They plucked the final feathers,
scorched vestiges of down,
till only stubbled skin remained;
a nine o’clock shadow engrained
in a poor man’s substitute for leather
fitting the wide-ankled foot
God had somehow cobbled, thrown together
to enable their long toes to weather
the savagery of spray,
help them, too, to clamber Stac a’Langa,
Connachair, the beak of Dun…
But these shoes fashioned from the flesh
of solan goose were designed
for a different purpose.
Not the skerry nor the crag.
The shimming down of cliff-face
to coax and catch the kittiwake or shag.
The stepping out for sermons.
The path home from a ceilidh
in damp or dewfall of the dark.
Instead, they stitched and laced
patchwork and scrag-ends left behind
from pan and plate
after they had feasted
in hope the skin retained
the buoyancy of that bird,
its speed of movement, turn and tilt,
the way it whirls its body
on a downward twist from Heaven,
all that might enable them to plunge
off the edge of arches, clefts and caves
to bring up from the dashing shades of water,
secret darkness of the waves
whatever might be salvaged:
the dark glimmering of petrels, shearwaters,
guillemots and puffins
that a dive might sweep
and lift up to the surface
take bird-flesh home to houses,
end the thunder in their stomachs,
keep life over the winter’s course
both secure and safe.