Outward Bound

-That was the time Scotland began to move.
-Scotland move? No, it is impossible!
-It became an island, and was able
to float in the Atlantic lake and prove
crannogs no fable. Like a sea-washed log
it loved to tempt earnest geographers,
duck down and dub them drunk hydrographers,
shake itself dry, no longer log but dog.
-Was it powered? On stilts? – Amazing grace
was found in granite, it moved on pure sound.
Greenland twisted round to hear it, Key West
whistled, waved, Lanzarote’s ashy face
cracked open with laughter. There was no ground
of being, only being, sweetest and best.

(c) Edwin Morgan. Poems appear with kind permission of Carcanet Press and Mariscat Press. Images by kind permission of EdwinMorgan.com. With thanks to Edwin and the Scottish Poetry Library.