Tangled
Come and come is the seaweed Come and come is the red sea-ware Come is yellow weed, come is tangle Come is food which the wave enwraps. Carmina Gadelica Lamps of the wattles slowly brighten, lengthening the days. And a grey robin calls from the hawthorn hedge, quiet, clear, heart-piercing – the sound of the beginning of the end of winter through every year of my life here, early on when I didn’t know who I was hearing, then catching first glimpses, then close by; and after that, even out of sight the bird is with me. Cold light; snow-patched mountains against a white sky. But tiny green hands appear on the tips of the elder twigs, and in them the buds of flowers to come. Russet sheaths of willow catkins shine with resin, swelling. For weeks now, since the shortest day, the young hens have been laying small beautifu