Ragna as scribe

by Lydia Harris

On each page she adds primroses
from the hill at Hammers,
 
transcribes the corncrake’s cry
on a stave between strainer posts,

listens for lichen on stone,
guides her pen through Kyrie Eleison,

traps voices from the broch
brought by the wind,

settles them into the ground
to be ploughed, harrowed and trodden,
 
adds some words I would understand
noust, bere, mulder,

conjures the way
day begins with kye in fog,
 
gilds the giant puff ball
which wasn’t there before,

spins benisons from the air  
from the folds of her throat,

how the muscles in her face
move with the clouds.