Small, querulous voices
among waves’ quiver and heave
where they hide themselves
.
in shadow and light of their feathers.
As though only visiting this world
for insects and crustaceans,
.
they live on hinges of moments,
riding currents and tides.
Whirling on the surface of a lochan
.
like a tottim they create a vortex
to draw up creatures which they snap-peck
one by one, quick as chopsticks.
.
Males incubate eggs whose shells are dense
with legend as if each chick grew to fill its own map
inscribed by its mother. Females can’t do
.
with running a nesthold, preferring to make
a head-start on the 16 thousand mile vaege
from Shetland to Galapagos.
.
The Shetland dialect word for the Red-necked Phalarope is peerie-deuk, a little clockwork duck. A tottim is a spinning top. A vaege is a journey by sea.
.
Rebecca Gethin had two pamphlets published in 2017 and new work appears in various magazines and anthologies. She has been a Hawthornden Fellow and undertook a residency at Brisons Veor. Messages was a winner in the Coast to Coast to Coast pamphlet competition and is available as a hand- made stitched limited edition. Vanishings is forthcoming from Palewell Press.
