Skara Brae and the Bay of Skaill, Orkney

This was written on a wall in the visitor's centre nearby & I had to scribble it down. This is what you feel in the quiet of the place, the breath of the sea hanging inland; those who abandoned Skara Brae over 4000 years ago are living on in the flutter & chatter of house sparrows nesting in between the stones of the walls.

Skara Brae by George Mackay Brown

Here in our village in the west
We are little regarded.

The lords of tilth and loch
Are Quarrying (we hear)
Great stones to make a stone circle

In the last of the snow
A great one died
In that stone hollow in the east.
A winter sunset
Will touch his mouth. He carries
A cairngorm on his cold finger
To the country of the dead.

They come here from Birsay
To take our fish for taxes. Otherwise
We are left in peace
With our small fires and pots.

Will it be a morning for fishermen?
The sun died in red flames
Then the night swarmed with stars, like fish.

The sea gives and takes. The sea
Devoured four houses one winter.

Ask the old one to make a clay lamp
The ripening sun
May be pleased with the small flame, at-plough-time.