Hebridean Geology

Ulva, Staffa, Treshnish

Giants carried on the wind become
gods with wings of rock:
granite, basalt, gabbro, tuff.

They travel down the centuries,
drop their wing-parts into ocean, into ice,
smash islands into life, spawn

mountains, rivers, pillars and cathedrals
from which music boils and serpents,
echoes in the world’s

most brilliant minds, chords sailing out
to catch the falling gods,
their wings now broken nubs. Shrinking

to the size of geese or sheep,
they walk among us
as the guidebooks turn to dust.

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