CROCITUS: THE NORTH BIRD

On doosty wings across the watter saphire

Flew yon corbie, hooded and low

A craick as cracked stone its song

An arra let loose, then nae more

Oop above rock and crag

Where yon raptors circle slow

A warm breath slow dance of death

The zephyr, its touch an itch nivvor t’ let go!

Aye, doon where watter an’ sand kiss 

A boat is launched

Sick green with sap, a white sail

Caulked an’ good high heed

Aye an’ on board mariners they sing

The song of death is this the sailors’ song  

“How way me lads, push and how way, on breaking wave

There be islands t’ take, and seas t’ conquer.

And folk t’ fight, bury and put t’ flight! 

Where watter falls, t’ the end of the earth

There we go. T’ hell and heaven the one ride                     

The thrill, blood, sweat and t’ spill

T’ tok treasures and earn our keep. 

T’ drink and take our pleasures oot on the wild sea

Let’ oos be Gone!” 

They shout and going oot past the tide
They ride atop the waves, nivoor a look back

Putting t’ sea, generation afta generation

Son following their da, t’ fight

And die in wars not of their making

Fer slaughter and slaughtering  

Across islands of folk like thems they left at home

An’ their blood runs hot and then chills t’ cold

Thickens tar black beneath the hotting sun

A pulse weakens and stops all fight gone

The men, the men those who dont coom hayme                          

And another hoose sits empty                  

Or burns, or falls or crumbles

Ma’s an’ widdas grieve

Women bloodied and reived in madness

Tear dresses and rub ashes, grind the bones of bairns

Make bam cakes from bitter flour of kelp

And still the tides role

Oot in watter deeper than light can see

The lover, seal currents and shoals of fish

Kiss white boned faces in fluorescent silt

And in watters deep and watters still as death

Cities, towns, villages, hooses, awl long doost

And to the wind tossed grit corbies them still fly

Craik! craik on the dying breath of a zephyr

And still the sailors moost row 

Seaweed hair aglow, hand 'n hand 

With the octopus, barnacle and gravestone of shell

Island to Lotus Island, old dreams of riches

Of men, of men wearied of being men

Into fate and eternal sunsets’, they row

Above and beyond drowned Gods exact their toll

And above them the raptors dance in ever slower diminishing circles

And so, it is and always so it has been

In amidst these Islands of beauty

So, it is, the sirens call, no need of rocks

To sink a ship and drown men by the score

And so, it is, men, women and children

On these waters set sail to make an Island shore

Where safety may gather and rest to begin the great walk

To Northern European shores, streets and camps

Or to lie on the side of roads, train tracks, by fences
Ter say nae more, nae more!

And what is this I see?

A boat roon aground

Its prow in the golden sand

And men joomping oot

It is folly, an aged old folly

Reminted anew

But row me boys, row

To yet another island beyond

An island and another island

The blood red seas

On a stoop awld men sit

An’ crack tales beneath the feeble sun

Slowly sup their ale, heroes

Boot not sooch like those who did not come back.

“How way lads, how way.”

An’ death responds

“Come me marras, t’ me and the darkness,

where no stars light ye path and the tears fall

Sooch t’ fill an ocean grander than dreams. T’ me! T’ me”

The song of the sailor, the siren’s call

And they do, we do, we sail on and on.

Crete September 2015