Alan Gay, a PEN member, is a retired lecturer who lives in East Lothian. He is currently the Convener of Tyne & Esk Writers. His latest collection, The Boy Who Came Ashore (Dreadful Night Press), now in its second edition, commemorates East Coast fishermen caught at sea in the great storm of 1881.
Migration
If I let go I will be lifted
and thrown into the breakers
that roll north across the Forth.
Such a wind.
It could reach under the sands of Largo Bay
and flip Fife into the air like a pancake.
V's of geese torn to shreds
battle against jetstream lanes
blown straight from Africa.
The lead arrowheads twist
and dive, forced low over the sea.
My shouts: Go Back - go back
are dowsed by gusts
solid with sand-filled spindrift
scoring my eyes to blurred lenses.
The geese are reduced to splashes of ink
that swim into I's, Y's and W's -
codes written into the lines of cloud,
bending, breaking, re-forming.
Dots and commas slither down the sky.
Scattered letters dance amongst the breakers.
Alan Gay
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