NEST

We arrived at the bend of solstice week
and pitched our tent below the red-roofed kirk
afloat like an ark on a blue-lupin

lea. In the lee of the cliff, we blew up
our bed to lie down beneath the midnight
sun, hard by the black-sand beaches of Vík.


Afloat on the youngest land Earth's bred, we slept
and woke to the surging sea, to the screak

of the terns who'd returned to breed, to rise,

plummet and nest. In wind and rain, we struck

our tent and girded ourselves for return
by a route discrete from the way we came.