Skerry Land

It’s perfectly understandable.
You’re used to more extensive landscapes,
Islands at least large enough to be

Habitable. Here, there’s few of those,
But this is hardly an empty sea,
Is it, in these innumerable

Long, dark reefs spattered with wind-warped pines?
Little more than boulders, some of these,
Like dragons and snakes in the water,

Crenellated spines of somber stones,
Nothing like fine island fantasies.
The narrow passages between them

Can be threaded by careful kayaks,
And there’s a little bit of beauty
In beetle-browed cliffs that almost touch.

It’s a lot of work to move through this.
You have to savor the loneliness,
The occasional glimpses of seals,

And not be fearful of getting lost
Among the long dark lines, the sharp rocks
So close to shore, but confusing, raw,

As if the last sea monsters rushing
Away had ripped the coastline to shreds
In the desperate scrabbling of their claws.