Muirburn
Little gets past the blue-eyed collie who never sleeps: wired, rigid, head turned by instinct, all her being tensed to the instant where the car flies nearest (one day she'll take the plunge and take the impulse with her.) No, but she can tell: could taste it on the air before a match was ever struck. So too, the barnacle geese: lifting with their crash of seats abandoned in a fleapit theatre. Our scorched earth policy hardly favours all the animals-- for the grouse's nibbles there are others left with nose (or beak) out of joint. The ribbon road: like a child's depiction of such, past the dip haunted by the otter, a feather-turn of radio matching waveform of verge and fence to the ebb of whispering Bob's lament, then seeing Hellisay—on fire, arcs and spirals of red showing her muirburn's leading edge. His home well mothballed, carpetless, slot-scored Bell's bottle full of coppers by the doormat. Thumb on chest he called himself The Wreck of the Hesperus; smelling the muirburn on my clothes he remarked on it as I went about my work. Given whisky for our efforts: 'A smoor,' he said, offering no water to put out the fire. Returning on the ribbon road, it was late enough for the shipping forecast: song of the nightingale translated for sky and sea, Hebrides as ever covering all bases with good, occasionally poor. For the hell of it, on my own gowk's errand, I climbed Ben Eoligarry, sat in anticipation of dawn. There, on the horizon, Hellisay burned on, sending up a plaintive banner of cloud for the geese-- and for that blue-eyed collie, who would not sleep until the sun came to kill the flame. Published in Stand 197.
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AuthorMy novel The Last of us was published by The Borough Press in April 2016. Archives
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