The sky announces an approaching storm

but the sea says there is time enough.

I balance on boulders

rounded by three billion years.

It takes me one of two ways

this ‘being in nature’.

Often towards Mary Oliver who knew

that one moment was enough.

Enough to fill a whole life

complete and brim-full,

stretched forever across the sky

like the skein of rain now on the horizon.

But today it takes me another way

towards friends and family

to the many kindnesses

we have shared and received.

How we have travelled, our little pack,

weaving pathways through the forest

as the troubled world closes in for a kill

more final even than war.

It starts to rain on Gearranan beach

And I pull a woollen hat over my ears.

It knits the colours of the island;

green, purple, orange and the crystal grey of gneiss.

For a moment, rainbows and boulders,

friends and rain, sea and thickening clouds

sit with me on the beach as rain splatters my glasses –

I breathe the rhythm of the waves.