Poems, Puffins and Piskies

A nice Presbyterian friend gave me a copy of a poem she thought might appeal to me.

"St Kildan Congregation" by Derick Thomson

The fulmars are on Stac an Armainn,
living in comradeship,
their eggs keep their hold on the rock,
dancers on tip-toe,
and eternity wells up
at the foot of the rock cliffs.

The solan on Soay
fondles the gannet's throat
the eye stares straight into space,
its beak teaches the Parables,
each one on its own nest.

And the puffins are at the edge of the rock-ledge
in their white surplices,
with their coloured beaks;
I've heard, but don't know whether to believe it,
they're Episcopalians. Well, take it or leave it.

I love the image of puffins as wee, plump Piskie clergy in cassocks and surplices! They do look so like portly cathedral canons, patrolling the cloisters after Evensong. As I might well look in a decade or two!