Landfall, Iona
Duns Scotus on Iona
God and the Corncrake
Landfall, Iona In hypnotic succession the waves doubly powered by tide and wind don't tumble ashore but go their own way down the Sound, each with a soapy glaze. An intimate thunder in the ear, the skin and hair thickened with salt, the brief warmth of speech blown to kingdom come... The ferry's emerged, rolling and pitching half-a-mile south to the marker buoy where it stops. Not indecision: avoidance of side-on to the swell. A diagonal reverse brings it our way. Now it's a hundred yards offshore, but churning backwards, the pilot visible at the wheel. This far for nothing? No, he's lining up, coming in fast bow ramp lowering over water. It's hardly touched down before the one car on board accelerates away, the foot passengers scream in a wash of surf, steadied by crew in their orange gear. A few figures hurry on, the ramp shifting, the engines striving to hold against the one-way muscling of the sea. We glance at the ferry backing out, shut the van on gale and spray, head inland for island shelter, the landscape and sky still voyaging. Copyright © 2020 Martin Hayden
Duns Scotus on Iona (Haecceity ... from Latin haeceitas, which translates as 'thisness'-- the discrete qualities, properties or characteristics of a thing which make it a particular thing. ) He was never here, but look at that seal: she dips her wet head, her shiny flank sliding in green shallows. You scan the waves where she vanished but it's far to the right a head surfaces. A long stare from the cloaked eyes, sea-gear eyes. You could just as well say the sea is hers as she is the sea's, but saying so look! you almost miss her flip-turn curve lithe as the inside of a wave. Copyright © 2020 Martin Hayden
God and the Corncrake Sword-like leaves in clusters, the iris beds quicken and grow dense from April into May, attracting rows of visitors with tripods: theirs heads, their 'scopes and cameras point one way. They lift the whole paraphernalia each time the rasping ripping-velcro of the call through stealthy unseen weavings shifts its stall, their crouching backs undeterred by failure. I stroll up to the Abbey on the sward: in front, four, reckoning what they've heard comes from the patch below them by the shore. Imagine the fervour and commotion when they know behind them there's a plain and doughty bird on its favourite evening stone in open show. Copyright © 2020 Martin Hayden