“History broods over that part of the world like the easterly haar.”
—ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON
On a blue scarp, far out, musing
over water, standing where the salt winds
whet their blades on granite edges,
hogweeds rasping, marram grass and thistle,
I was north of Aberdeen,
alone and calling to a friend
as if the wind could carry to her heart
my words like spores, as if
by merely shouting in the air
past waters snarling in the rocks
affection could be raised, its sword
and fire, the blue flame
rising in the mist, the lifting haar.