The Helmsdale astrologer opens her arms to the haar,
calling beyond to the soothsayer’s stars.
Her all-seeing eye of rune-twisted time,
her yellow-whin-thought beguiling the mind.
“Are you sure the wind blowèd long and strong
and carried those scriachans on my bansheein’ song?”
she asks as high spin-drift on the ocean waves thrills us,
we lying half-naked looking up at the cirrus.
The Bodachs on the harbour shantying to the ocean,
praying they’ll out-wit Poseidon’s motion.
“You think you’re gods,” Helmsdale’s haruspex hails
as she guts-out the herrings and gnaws on their tails.
“Men are like trawlers with gold-plated decks:
beautiful but useless.” That’s Charuspech.