It used to be Mrs Humphrey's
hospital for Norway's whalers, anchored in Hamnavoe,
stricken with scurvy, back in the day. It's the Henderson's house, now.
The sea's soughing and the skiffs are skimming the Flow
with single fishermen; the ferry's wake
makes its perfect Vs visible from the workshop window.
Back-ground radio 3 voices drone on through Elaine's
days at the wheel, her hands in clay that grows as it spins...
Mike's lens traps northern Scottish
islands' changing light with photographs of long-horned
cattle on Hoy: gold, big - in the narrow track,
impassable, under the sullen mountain; mist rising and opening
purple crocuses in spring; a ruined bothy, standing in fog, still
loved by the camera at dusk. And then, when blustery weather
hurls on the land its might in the thin winds laced with brine,
screaming like fiends, whipping up spumes
of green froths, hooting through gaps under doors,
my sister's kiln is baking peedie mugs, with sea birds
beautifully sketched on pristine porcelain under a clear glaze.
They'll pack their fine pictures and these pots and bowls and tiles
for you in carefully-boxed tubes and cubes
and rush them to your own address...
where denser airs and neon lights make skies blush at sunset.
Jacqui Thewless
http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/scapa-studios/
