A Walk Across Breachacha Beach to Fasachd Bay;
Which We Call 'Catherine's Bay'
in Memory of Mrs. Catherine Hinkson;
With My Dog 'Coll',
Where We See Seals.

Rippled, sandy shot-e,- splashy, hard, and clean.
And softer parts below the dunes, where lies the stinking, sticky kelp,
The flotsam of the sea.
Wrenched from it's seabed roots to rot;
Dark, pitchy, odoriferous, with bright coloured remnants of this plastic age,
And boxes from Mallaig.

To brown and wet slippy rocks with popping wrack and black encrusted
stepping stones:
Surefooting now from rock to rock to reach the grass- topped peaty tamps.
And up to muddy paths with sheepsy dropping peas,
Between the dusky heather, myrtle, and the thyme
And soggy ditches with a lustrous oily sheen.

Look out upon the mirror water, darkling shapes of outer islands,'
Sombre, misty, indistinct.
See black heads appear, one, or two, or four?
Disappear and ripple, shadows in the glassy sea below
Coming closer, just to see us, then a twirling splash in fear.
Dim shapes down below the surface darting to another place,
Up again and wanting,
Wanting understanding, comprehension, even talking, but so fearful, ever wary Of the strangers' coming.

Grey mottled, ponderous shapes reclining on the slimy shore,
In an instant, with awareness, to the safety of their sea.
Coll sits haunched upon the seaweed, never barking, always looking
At the dark be whiskered heads, bobbing softly, stretching upwards,
Surely hell slip in to become one of them?

I lie there on the heather mattress, better yet than any bed,
Moisture droplets on the cobwebs, glinting in the fading light.
Rising stiffly, turning homewards, reluctant now to lose this moment.
Distant buildings come towards us with a single wavering light,
Looming castles in the murky vestige of the dying day.
Glancing back wards to our folio wing friends...
Will we ever meet again?

Chris Facey,
Isle of Coll,
March 1991.