The Ross of Mull

The year’s door shuts. The last red berries fall
and leave the rowan branches bare and dark
when in the night the wind begins to lift.
The sea booms white and huge;
a ledge of snow hallows the ben’s bare head. And then
it’s still: stars breathe the blue-black sky like brine.
The only colour left next day is grey
except when sudden sunlight comes to glow
the granite headland out across the sound,
firing the rubbled rock a bonfire orange bright
so all there is to do is stand and watch
as though some miracle were being born
and God was speaking through the stone once more—
that strange and still small voice of calm alive.