doors, windows, bridges, kite’s flying high
It is big sky and its changes,
the sea all round and the waters within.
It is the way sea and sky
work off each other constantly,
like people meeting in Alfred Street,
each face coming away with a hint
of the other’s face pressed in it.
It is the way a week-long gale
ends and folk emerge to hear
a single bird cry way high up.
It is the way you lean to me
and the way I lean to you, as if
we are each other’s prevailing;
how we connect along our shores,
the way we are tidal islands
joined for hours then inaccessible,
I’ll go for that,
and smile when I
pick sand off myself in the shower.
The way I am an inland loch to you
when a clatter of white whoops and rises…
It is the way Scotland looks to the South,
the way we enter friends’ houses
to leave what we came with, or flick
the kettle’s switch and wait.
This is where I want to live,
close to where the heart gives out,
ruined, perfected,
an empty arch against the sky
where birds fly through
instead of prayers
while in Hoy Sound
the ferry’s engines thrum
this life this life this life.
⛴
Orkney / This Life Andrew Greig
For Catherine and Jamie
this birth of awaiting changes
this for that
tit for tat
tuxedo memories
pinstripe debonair
glamour hangs
like confetti in the air
life goes
round and round
flinging dreams
synthetic roads
leading nowhere
screams and laugher
hardest when not fair
up one side now
down the other there
we hang on
we stomp our feet
and swear
this ain’t right
this we cannot bear
life goes forward
ever on and on
wanting only
to change our point of view
we are loved
no matter what we lose
love will win
love’s always
life’s sweet muse
sight or blind
the vision ours to choose
❤️
AL
I’ll be the wild that keeps your heart in the clouds and you’ll be the anchor that keeps my feet on the ground.
⚓️
by Victoria Erickson
Hey, wait a minute…(pause…..)
Living artfully with time might only require something as simple as pausing.
—Thomas Moore
Let Me Tell You About Beginnings..
life: acoustic & amplified 