the word of the Lord
ask this place
ask the silver day
the steady horizon
the self-heal the buttercup
the hard fern in the ditch
ask the bee and the tormentil
this rock smooth as an elephant’s back
as you sit and watch the breeze stir the surface of the sea
the blues ruffle from peaceable tilts exposed pools trapped
slabs lifted and nodules and nobbles in grim stone folded to a bowl
boiled and scooped witness to the gathering hawkbit scabious help us
Lydia Harris has made her home in the Orkney island of Westray. In 2017 she held a Scottish Book Trust New Writer’s Award. Her first full collection Objects for Private Devotion Pindrop 2022 was long listed for the Highland Book Prize. Her second collection Henrietta’s Library of the Whole Wide World was published by Blue Diode this spring.