Robin Robertson

after Goya The hooded penitents have passed – the shackled Nazarenos holding their long candles – and the altar boys, carrying the trappings of the Passion on their pillows: the hammer and nails, the crown of thorns, the chalice and the pliers; the soldiers’ flail, the soldiers’ dice. What shall we give him? The straw man is sick. We’ll finish him off, and beat him with sticks. The pasos have drifted away: statues of full-size wooden Christs and Virgins painted till they came alive – glass eyes, glass tears, eyelashes of human hair, ivory teeth and nails – on floats borne by fifty men, invisible under curtained palanquins. Poor puppet, I think he wants to die. Poor puppet, he wants to die. The bands have dispersed.

We walked the cliff of Portnahaven listening to the grey seals sing on Orsay and Eilean Mhic Coinnich across the little harbour. Were they singing for the love of being here in this place, like us, far from griefs — and were they also singing, as we were, to each other?