A blast off the Atlantic
snaps a flag in the Firth
of Clyde, while thirty leagues
away, the same synoptic wind
surges across this hillside
honeycombed with mineshafts,
sounding the unstopped slots
of a "G" harmonica left
to dry on the kitchen sill.
Snow charges a sky
in which the sun swims
and glimmers like a groat,
a turbulent space where owls
hunt by day but nothing
stands for long — bereft
of circumstance — beyond
the standing stones of
Long Meg and Her Daughters.
Through the night, like a stoker
on a fast express — the Hyperion
on its Edinburgh run —
you hoy buckets of coal
on the grate, only to see
its flames drawn up
the chimney, getting more
heat from hoying the fuel
than from its burning.
As a barnacle goose swims
against the dark, uttering
its terse honk, you pull
your favorite word, duvet,
close about your head.
Tomorrow, bailiffs may
take everything
not hammered down.