Mijbil

I recall Camusfeàrna, water

bright in the bay on the coast of Scotland 

where Gavin Maxwell raised his pet otter,

plucked out of the marsh.

This act is sinister to minds like mine,

for I too was lured to the sea, content 

in a salt cage, believing my wild self 

would keep inside me.

Believing the marshlands would call me back—

white sun through the vault of my confinement,

my name in the air, a spell of summoning,

heard at the right time. 

But that bright bay held me fast in gleaming nets

of light. I saw marshes only in dreams;

they had never stopped calling me, speaking

my name to the mist. 

Camusfeàrna, a paradise, a cage,

the place where the wild otter went to die,

loved by man, tamed beyond all knowing,

tamed to meet its end.

I left the bay before I drowned, before

the fate of the otter became my own.

Now I follow the marsh lights home, my name

in the mist, my name. 

Winning poem, Dunedin Unesco City of Literature Robert Burns Poetry Competition 2023 (unpublished division)