Inspired by her first trip to Noss, Oxford poet Helen Kidd wrote this in
1998
Dunter
by Helen Kidd (1998)
Water breathes cool in sun-gilded
harbour skin. We budge and putter,
seaming it slowly, then a swing
to north and we butt round
where roman-nosed bull seals
snoop on the off-chance, bob and
vanish under the fish factory pier.
And we're out and off skirting small
skerries, where the folk of the sea loll
and flipper, eyeing us warily, or roll
bullet and glide slip-easy through shoals.
Into the nudge and skim of wave backs
the thwack of the prow flying smacks
athwart ridged and furrowed folds, spume laces
round Rules Ness, the swamping and
singing salt of flung spray, a glittering
air-cut-with-curtains-of-wet of a day.
We dither and swerve by rock teeth for creels
and then off where peninsular keels
carve the sky's surf, nattering cliffs
where gannets clack and call; dapper in Zorro masks, swoop, skim and
soar - circle, climb, stand then the dart-flight fold and fall, bursting the
brim
and glint of swelling scrim, these amphibious arrows.
Light-dusted
shore-side a scree flank
daunts and beckons and we lift and dip
through the Bardastrom's breath-soaking douse
and plankton-starred caves. A cormorant
periscopes past, black guillemots whicker
"Keep back you Bonxies!"
Back home I hanker for this cold vast cradling.
Born with a water-noose round the heart
I starve, city-bound, for wide wild.
And the sea's eye is the deepest eye
darkest eye
brightest eye.
Ocean's eye is the oldest eye
the fickle spell-binding
imperative
dangerous eye.
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The Comogues
by Helen Kidd (written after seeing the Shetland kelp forest with our
underwater camera)
Into the invisible, the shift,
the glass sub goes to ogle shoals
of beroe cucumis…gargling fish,
whistling fish, and neon helcion
pellucidum; lightbulb squirts;
guillemots that loop and swoop
under the silk ceiling drift-a troupe
of aerialists flip in a flypast -
aurelia aurita corps
de ballet on the polyp set;
dynamena pumilla -
(the fans go wild)
bolinopsis (pas de bas
petits pas)
he's a star-
infundibulum. It's all
shuggle, whizz and glide…
slip-stream silvery, bubble-wrap glide,
big-eyed sillocks, piltocks. Noup's
kelp, cuvie forests synchronised
in Busby Berkeley symmetry;
pelagic surge and urge and fret
down through
honeyweed
holdfast
maidenhair…
the dabberlocks and furbellows, a continuo
that orchestrates the flow; urchins graze
and tentacle, all touchy taste, fizzy
fig sponges
sea mats
sea slugs
tubularia
sea gooseberries
hydromedusa's hot cross bun
wobble and spoot
phyto or zoo
plankton pirouette
in swarms of scilliae
fidget
frantic
fibrillate…
The great marine stew teems, gyrates -
the Black Deeps, the Merry Men of May,
Duncansby Bore -
Out beyond the land, Da Shuggi
(up to his shoulders)
out beyond the shore, they ride,
the small, the many, the life soup
the life support
water life
of every song and dance
into the big Wide…
------------------------------------
Roond da wirld
by Christine de Luca
Roond da wirld as peerie bairns
wis roond da rods o Bressa:
da kent wirld circumnavigated
in tricycles an prams. Takkin
Da Dunter roond Noss an Bressa
is still a vaege apon a wirld scale.
Aert history lockit up in rocks:
deserts rear as saandston banks.
Dey tell der tale: foo dey aedged
fae a tropic an her dulskit airms
tae an arctic skurt; foo shö wrat
her ticht history on dem wi wave
an wind an ice.
Swall lifts wis in a cave.
A stour o Eden's plankton shaas
in a blinkie's licht, an da green-
black sheen o scarfs. Ledged high,
dey dicht der wings, stretch dem
ta dry. Dey live da quiet life, yet
aye riggit for a foy.
Oot on da banks, a high-rise life:
up, up, ledge apo ledge o solan,
maalies, a mafia o swaabies.
A callyshang: fast maet
an faerdie-maet;
a constant harangue.
At da nort end o Bressa
a raft o dunters bobs; selkies wait
fur a silent tide ta turn.
Anidder history is bön written here:
o cleared laand, vod hooses, fat sheep;
o young men press-ganged.
But still dere's change: new hooses,
laand wrocht again. Bressa's
on da move, stane bi stane.
At Noss
by Gordon
Dargie, September 2007
The setting
is the desert sandstone cliffs
that face
the mathematics of the waves
where we
float with our weight of narratives
each needed
to account for this one place
below fine
ledges on the layers of time
where
gannets make their ritual displays
for exits
and returns. We know not to
project our
feelings onto birds, prefer
not to make
up stories, but gestures
are made to
be read, whatever we may
think we
mean or not think, and we defer
to one
another for unobstructed views,
a natural
history of narrative
in the time
when the tide came to the cliffs.
Snapshots from a boat
by Robert Sim,
March 2008
i
our world
moves
each second
upon a
grey seal's
back.
ii
drifting past
jellyfish drifting
past larvae
iii
we lower our underwater
camera
and yellow-coated
figures lean
right and left
to catch the best view
of the undulating kelp
iv
Abandoned in 1811
the croft of da Veng
was never reached by
road
or telephone or mail
but was a des-res in its
day,
partly because it was
close
to the Bressay haaf.
And under the surface
now
we see a forest as rich
as any rain-forest.
And that is where our
oxygen
is made by tiny
creatures
such as the ones we hold
in our huge palms
on the dripping
sloping
sliding
deck
v
There is a balance here
we
cannot see. We pass a
lone kayaker
clinging to the grey
skin
of the water, like a
skier
upon drab snow, or a
gnat
on an elephant's back.
Glossary______________________
da: the; peerie: little; wis: was,
us; rods: roads; vaege: journey; apon, apo: on; aert:
earth; lockit: locked; banks: sea cliffs; dey:
they; der: their; foo: how; aedged: edged; dulskit:
sluggish, torpid; airms: arms; tae, ta: to; skurt:
bosom; shö: she; wrat: wrote; dem: them; swall: sea
swell; stour: dust; shaas: shows; blinkie: torch;
scarfs: shags; riggit: dressed; foy: celebration; solan:
gannets; maalies: fulmers; swaabies: great black-backed
gulls; callyshang: noisy dispute; maet: food;
faerdie-maet: food for a journey; nort: north;
dunters: eider ducks; selkies: seals; anidder: another;
is bön: has been; vod: unoccupied.
