westray

24d

Let us now give thanks
for these salt-blown

wind-burned pastures
where oatgrass and timothy
shrink from the harrow of the sea…

—John Glenday, “A Westray Prayer”
published in SELECTED POEMS (Picador 2020)

https://www.panmacmillan.com/authors/john-glenday/selected-poems/9781529037715

#Scottish #literature #poem #poetry #Westray #Orkney

John Glenday
A Westray Prayer

in memoriam Mike and Barbara Heasman

Let us now give thanks
for these salt-blown

wind-burned pastures
where oatgrass and timothy
shrink from the harrow of the sea

where Scotland at long last
wearies of muttering its own name
where we may begin

to believe we have always known
what someone in his wisdom
must have meant

when he gave us everything
and told us nothing.

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