The late Edwin Morgan, Scotland’s first official Makar, was commissioned by Glasgow International Jazz Festival to write the poem sequence, Beasts of Scotland, set to music by Tommy Smith and first performed in 1996.

Today and tomorrow we feature two creatures from his engaging profiles of Caledonian wildlife (from Morgan’s Virtual and Other Realities, Carcanet, £6.95).

       GANNET

High the cliffs, and

blue the sky, and

mad the spray, and

bright the sun, and

deep as the grave

the teeming waters

never at rest

in St Kilda’s cauldron.

Fish for the taking

lazing in innocence

island to island,

flesh for a thunderbolt

not thrown by gods,

not Greek, not a Gael.

If the fish could look up:
a bird left the crag

white against the blue,

half hovered, half-circled,

stopped in an air-path

with eye unblinking,

folded its wings, and

gravity-batteried,

sharp beak down, and

sharp tail up, it

plunged, it

plummeted, it

hit the sea, it

shot right under, and

vanished except

to the fish it speared

in a fearful irruption

from a heaven unseen.

So who is safe?

The gannet cliffs

are shrieking, but

not about that.