Salt Island

            I wanted to make a gothic of it all:
the trees on the slope where the island dipped
                into the sea, their weird kinks & angles;
the scrap of wool where a sheep had rubbed
                a flank against a tree’s arthritic fingers;
the cloud-quilt which was then breaking up
                as though someone had pulled
the one thread which held the whole clump
                of vapours in place. I walked over
the hill with my kilt flapping
                                                    & thought
                wow! all this for me? &
the weather just kept getting better,
                rescinding its earlier threats of rain.
The mood was ruined; I wanted ice-cream.
                In the photographs I scroll through now,
in bed a week later, I see that my red tartan
                clashed with the grass so perfectly
I wonder if I intended to be the punctum,
                the little rip in the surface
where my eye might snag. It is too
                early to tell if I’ve succeeded,
& too early in the morning — the sun
                not yet visible behind the hills —
to tease out what it means when all this naming,
                of the island, wool, sheep, trees, & clouds,
is just another way of saying I, I, I, I, I