Making Ends Meet
a poem by Andrew McNeillie

Since you ask, I think of a door into the light,
Light enough to make me blink and rub
The sleep from my eyes. Limestone light
Backlit by sea. Light like a shadow
Falling outside-in, on a stone floor.
And a kettle rattling to life loud as shingle,
Its breath billowing like my own
As I lean there in the jamb, sipping hot tea,
Contemplating, savouring sea-light
In those days when the island still
Worked for a living, at sea or ashore,
Or caught the boat for nevermore . . .
The tide out below. And the early worm
Already turning in a bird’s gut
Like the one thought in my head
Of lines to set and bait to put
Some poem on my plate by evening.
Do I miss it? I have to own up, I do.
Though I have the best of it wherever I go
And the rest of it is everywhere still
Struggling to make ends meet.

Andrew McNeillie is the founder of the Clutag Press. Information on their publishing activities can be found here. Of particular interest to us is the planned launch party for Archipelago 10, taking place at Somerville College, Oxford on Saturday 14 November. Programme details are a little sketchy at present but a showing of Robert Flaherty’s Man of Aran 1934 documentary film introduced by Tim Robinson is itself enough to warrant excitement.