by Garry MacKenzie
Ravens have him out of his depth,
daring collisions until he’s forced
to break his soar. They tumble him
round the cliffs and out of sight:
I’ve caught this drama’s middle act
that started minutes or an hour ago.
An adolescent, still more white
than gold, perhaps he’s reached the point
where confidence’s mooring line
has snapped and sent him spinning off –
perhaps he suffers this heckling because
there’s nothing yet to lose.
But this is not a play. Its meaning
is its happening, its time
is measured by a clock of blood.
It blows across the border
of my life as if I wasn’t there.
Garry MacKenzie has won poetry awards including the Wigtown Poetry Competition and a Scottish Book Trust New Writer’s Award. His poems have been published in journals including Dark Mountain, The Scores, Northwords Now and Southlight. His non-fiction book Scotland: A Literary Guide for Travellers is published by I.B. Tauris.
