Blank Slate

 

Iona is a blank slate.

So much of her is non-color.

Flat gray stone as canvas,

backdrop of sage green hills

warming to brighter days.

I am drawn again to the fire station

and its rusty brown stone wall,

and flash of shiny red on the doors.

As I walk along I spy the inside of a half-shell,

pearly like the back of a baby’s neck.

And I look toward the bay at a fishing trawler

with its startling orange floats popping

on the deck like the erupted skin

of a teenage boy

just before his first date.

In the air floats a gull

over tinseled water, sun shining its whitest white

on its charcoal tipped wings.

Then the dissonant sound of the cruise guide,

“yellow tags line up here” and no one pays attention;

no one lines up in their

sensible brown shoes

and their green waxed coats.

And I walk back toward the Argyll Hotel

with its gray, grayer, grayest stone walls

 

and its windows and door

outlined in delphinium blue.

 

 

 

 

I Am Gannet

 

I am gannet, seabird,

soaring with my gray,

white and yellow-feathered body

off the volcanic shore of Iona.

The sparkling waters

in Martyrs Bay

tempt and tease me

as they race over

their bounty hidden

deep below the surface.

 

I climb skyward high

over the bouncing waves

as they strive for shore.

Now. Turn. Somersault.

Beak first, speeding straight down

wings sleek along my body,

needle-like.

 

Capture one shiny silver fish.

Burst up through the waves.

Slowly and steadily I balance

on top of the water. One gulp.

Fish gone, sustenance begins.

As I’m being nourished

rich nutrients coursing through me,

my mind clears, my eyesight sharpens

I open my beak to call out gratitude.

 

Rebekah Spivey for the Poplar Grove Muse