Falkirk
Writers' Circle

ISLAND STORM.

06/09/2011

by Allan Brownlie

 

The weather broke over the cottage,
maddening the young rowan trees.
It rattled doors and swayed the flame
of the candle behind leaded glass.

We listened to the weather report;
the dinner-jacketed, sonorous voice
connecting us to the mainland
across miles of hurly-burly water;
the Atlantic stampeding in a gale.

Halfway through Beethoven's Third
the BBC World Service cracked,
sputtered and fell silent.
We felt the thunder in our bones.

And the heavy limestone slates
all night clanking, lifting and falling
as invisible fingers plucked the taut strings
of an orchestral sky.

 

 

Copyright ©2011 Allan Brownlie. All rights reserved.