Crackaig Beach

Crackaig Beach. Sheep cropped turf with minute flowers behind the dunes, caravans mostly empty some look abandoned, concrete structures left over from the war, sand and stone beach, rock pools, cormorants and shags, plovers and oyster catchers, a dead seal and dead barn owl beyond, one white wing blowing upright against the wind, salt crusts on the stones, black marked rocks like paint spilled – this part of the Earth rests on one of the many fault lines in Scotland. On the beaches you can see where one part of the world has slipped under another – some of the rocks spread out like quilts on the sand, some recline on one arm and resemble figures in the sun, others angle upward - sharp and dark splitting easily and revealing ancient fossils within – the stones in the rock pools are like jewels in the shining water.