St Fillan’s Gallery

　

Back on the coastal path again and up along Cove Wynd,

past the place where St Fillan stayed up all night,

working by the luminous light of his left arm,

reminding me not to look back or wander off the track

which, for old time’s sake, I retrace,

stopping for a miraculous plate of bread and fresh herring,

and the usual crowd: puffins and a collage of shovelers,

the over-colourful gulls, and right behind me

a preening heron – though nothing like the one

by Shore Head, dishevelled in a rockpool

while the sea slammed in – and even as I’d give

all this back to you, it’s gone – the grey light

in which the oystercatchers, coming quickly at me,

are a dash of orange against the black rock –

tuned to each incoming wave without having to look.