WE are back on the beautiful Island of Lindisfarne in Northumbia, UK. Here, at times when the island is cut off from the mainland is a deep peacefulness which could very reasonably be described as ‘balm for the soul’. We have been coming to Lindisfarne since 2013 when we visited in November and gained personal experience of why Lindisfarne is also known as The Isle of Winds! But that did not deter us. This ‘thin space’, inhabited by saints and evincing a beauty which can be breathtaking, has called us back again, and again, and we are always delighted to make it safely across the causeway and be welcomed by the deep-throated song of the seals. This poem emerged within a day of arriving.
ISLAND RETURN
With an hour of safe-crossing still to go,
we coast across the causeway
in our newly acquired, zero emissions car.
We are heading for our oft-visited
Lindisfarne retreat.
To our delight, the seals
are once again waiting
to slither off the sandbags
as the wavelets, inexorably wash over them.
Is it too fanciful
to imagine,
that the last heads
to bob above the ripples,
might be deniers
of the inevitability
of rising water?
September 2025
