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observance

A pair of mergansers and a gull of some kind float on the loch. A young northern diver plucks at its feathers. Three greylag geese circle in and splash down. The power boat of the angry second home-owner whose council tax is being multiplied speeds out to the horizon where Harris stands, solid and blue.

Visitor season is underway, and it’s multi-purpose: feeding, breeding, fishing, sight-seeing. Even though I’m resident year-round, my life changes too: changeovers, slow traffic, tourists staring in my windows. I’m not from here originally either, mind you. I blew in on a boat thirteen years ago. I could rush to stake my claim, my right to be here—like the election candidates at the hustings last night (only one of whom lives in the constituency)—but belonging is more subtle than that.

I close my eyes to better feel the warmth of the sunshine on my face then drink my flask of green tea. The power boat motors back in as a tour boat motors out, a clutch of passengers on board, hands pushed into pockets against the cool spring breeze. Their wakes and engine-roars criss-cross noisily and the oystercatchers which have suddenly appeared start peeping furiously in competition.

The wakes spread outwards, a sequence of small waves rolling towards the tidal islet I’m perched on, lapping and splashing as they reach the rocks below. The gull lifts off and flies away to the north, drawing its shadow over my head as it leaves. I’ve lost sight of the mergansers but the diver still floats nearby, still twisting its head round to fuss over its feathers while the greylag flotilla cruises slowly past.

We all have our own cycles, I suppose. Seasons, generations, eras of life. Is it only the speed with which we pass through which varies? Or is it our commitment—the quality of our attention, our devotion—to the place in which we find ourselves, however briefly? I stand up reluctantly and turn my back on the horizon. The things I need to do today tug at my conscience: a new website for the tour boat company, a repair of my garden’s dry stone wall. I’m no longer a visitor, I remind myself. I’ve worked my way in.

Lady Constance Bay, Loch Inver, Assynt, Scotland
28th April 2026

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Rubha Rodha

book of poems open
across the Minch
the unfolded arms of Harris

Rubha Rodha, Loch Roe, Assynt, Scotland
7th April 2026

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afterwards

It always impresses me how bright the colour green is after snow. We’ve only had a week of snow cover, a fraction of the successive months I used to undergo in Quebec, yet as the grass reveals itself again it appears supernaturally viridian. The dullness of the day enhances the effect, the persistent rain and low grey cloud allowing the hues of the ground to come into their own, glowing with an inner luminance and seeming to rise out of the earth towards us.

I’ve loved having the snow. I’ve loved the simplicity and purity of the visual landscape and skyscape, the soft white carpet and laden charcoal-grey clouds completing each other in a quiet monochromatism. In Quebec, the snow stayed for so long that by February I would be longing for greenness, like a physical thirst. I don’t feel that now. Indeed, our snow spell has been all too brief. But something in me does feel relieved and enlivened—satiated—by the visible verdancy, the lurid green allure.

Lochinver, Assynt, Scotland
11th January 2026