Naomi Mitchison

Kintyre

I wake when the wind changes.
Beyond the dark Firth far,
Where the waves clap and the tides rustle and the herring are,
At the far side of the great Clyde the wind ranges.
I wake as it changes.

If snow flew or mist blew
East on the hills of Renfrew,
Here, Arran sheltered, we might never know,
Get no breath of sleet or hard snow,
Until across the mountain ranges
The wind backs and changes.

Clear starlight as sleep takes me,
But a cloud creeps from the side.
My dream no more ranges
Through a universe at rest,
But quick through the window wide,
From Atlantic on the west
Or from east beyond Clyde,
Leaps anxious into my breast.
I wake when the wind changes.

Naomi Mitchison
from The Cleansing of the Knife and other poems (Canongate, 1978)

This is another of the Edinburgh Park herms, sculpted by Archie Forrest.