Inner Sound

A beat, like the sun rising behind you,
A crack of dawn over the mountains;
Cloud shifts; shafts reach over your shoulder,
Low.

Against heavy weather to the west, arriving soon,
Morning burns the Quiraing, unbelievably bright;
Sea alone rides itself, 

Grey.

Grey again; every colour in monochrome,
Almost blue, intense, sky and sea, edges blurring,
Weep one to the other, approximate,
Leached.

Rockall is a distant promise behind the squall, behind Harris, drowned.
Veils of weather drift down, sky, land and sea immeasurable and drowning,
And the sea, king of elements, turns them all, binds them,
Within sight.

As if the planet’s canvas was coarse paper and today was painted on it,
Painted wet across the ridged fibres, swathed colours sucked into the dry;
Colours, and we could name them, sink beneath the surface
And like the painted small boats or debris in the sound, wallowing,
Disappear.

But colour in the eyes has no name; it is colour unseen,
Beyond perception, a subliminal understanding of hue and chroma,
Of luminosity and all the tricks of light, bloodlessly bleeding
Together.

Wind when it rises is from the west, rain on it touches the face
Thin as sea spray, cold creeps only to echo the colour of weather.
In the ears, wind, sea upon the beaches, rain falling on heather
Combined like blood rushing, like a blood circulating, like hearts
Beating.

Weather. Elements.
The world outside is tumbling and we are the shingle
In turmoil as the tide washes it. Sight gives way to listening.
On the sky’s canvas, in a single brushstroke, the season sweeps
And the sound it makes, caught beneath the skin, remains
Inside us.

© BH, 2016

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Another piece in response to artworks, inspired by the title of Alison Dunlop's exhibition 'Inner Sound', opening this weekend in Gairloch Heritage Museum.