Monday 23rd June 2025

Aidan Semmens (Member 64,432) seldom sees days as calm as this in his home islands of Orkney, Scotland, where weather systems can bring gale-force winds at any time of year. This summer sky of Stratocumulus was perfectly reflected in the still waters of the Bay of Firth.

Orkney poet George Mackay Brown also kept an eye on the weather, although not quite as acutely as the local fishermen, as he shows in his poem ‘Weather Forecasts’ (1994):

‘Seven old fishermen
Sit on the sea wall in the sun.
A storm, a week away,
Frets their blood.
They smoke their pipes. They reckon
a few baskets between now
And the purple chasms westward.

I sit in my rocker
Watching “the fronts” on a glimmering screen.’
Published in the collection _Northern Lights: A Poet’s Sources (1999) by George Mackay Brown_.




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