GOING TO COLONSAY

 It is too late to go to Colonsay

               where the frail light falls softly on the sea,

              the ferry boat can take you – but for me

            it might as well be half the world away.

       I can still see the island in my mind –

                                                                    the yellow iris shining on the shore,

                                                                    the broken clefs that curl from a fern floor,

                                                                    the waves that spread their lace along the sand.

                                                                    In June the darkness never quite comes down –

                                                                    there in the north where the deer call at night

                                                                    the Summer Isles lie in a long twilight

                                                                    till the tide swings them back towards the dawn.

                                                                    In here the nurses come to shake my bed

                                                                    and bustle round the ward with supper trays,

                                                                    they chatter of their summer holidays –

                                                                    in France with Tom or Malaga with Ted.

                                                                    But I – I long to see the gorse in bloom

                                                                    beside the sea loch, there on Colonsay

                                                                    and hear again that single piper play

                                                                    tunes to take with me to a downstairs room.

                     Finola Holiday