Norman MacCaig finds whimsical rapport with one of Scotland's most popular sea birds.

The lines can be found in the splendid posthumous volume of his poems edited by his son Ewen (Polygon).

PUFFIN

Where the small burn

spreads into the sea loch

I found the mad, clever clown's beak

of a puffin.

How many times

had it whirled into its burrow

with six-fold whisker

of tiny fishes?

How many times

had it grunted love

to its parrot-faced lover?

I clack my own beak

by my own burrow

to feel how many little fishes

I've whiskered home, and

I grunt and grunt

before whirling off again

into the huge sea spaces.