Water-sodden bole nodding along in the ruffled loch.

Thickened rasping of ivory,
Old men clothed in gray wool. Lore of a devil

Landlocked by a holy man, dragged back as if by cords
During those gloppy days described
In calligraphy on pages bound in red goat leather:

Preserved, saved
From cold and wet, from muck and decay:

The tepid seawater cooled upon the land.

Grandfather—your briny skin marbles there:
Some of the water stayed, some left. You stayed:

Called through gurgling recordings,
Smearing sand in a life
Unlike the other life. Diamond-shaped
Flipper pressing out of darkness
In the grainy underwater scenes.

A smell like rotted leaves, but not.

Our eyes interrogate all waters the world over,
For a gliding shadow: selkie, kelpie, serpent,

Whose great neck might rise,
Like the raising half-heart of a swan's neck,

And announce something old still about the earth.