Out on the boundary*

Near this years potatoes and wild poppies

lies the Skeith Stane;

a way marker or entry point into

the medieval monastic settlement.

Echoes of the monks conversation

about Ethernan float across

the wind-whipped drizzly air.

There is no-one else on this track

today.

A marker, a liminal place.

And looking across the field of oats

to the south,

I see the Isle of May out on the Forth;

they say Ethernan was laid to rest there.

The old monastic precinct at Kilrenny

was dedicated to this man

in the 7th Century.

I pick some oats to dry later on.

Time almost stands still.

Sandy Wilkie

July 2025

* see Trench-Jellicoe, R (1998), 'The Skeith Stone, Upper Kilrenny, Fife, in it's context', Proc Sec Antiq Scot 128, 495-513.