Elegy

Last night I dreamt of seals
immersed in a swampy grey sea

as nubs of invisible salt
buried and more buried in colourless flesh.

Before I woke, you had become less real
than this: my eyes drifting between

your new red coat, your blue gloves
and your grey brush on the window sill

still quivering with a few white hairs.

 

Original poem from Love and Zen in the Outer Hebrides © Kevin MacNeil and Canongate Books 1998