the hounds of Tiumpan Head

Terry Dawson

March 1, 2026

they straight away object to our presence

in a wind that swallows their barking whole

and leaves us holding onto our hats

the lighthouse now their home still winks

back at us in our croft cottage — white

against the dark heather and swirled salt grass

while the dogs fail to trust us,

we still must trust our legs on these crags

with stones below ravaged by surf

I walk with my grown daughter without a

word after all, our beckoning talk only

stirred a fierce canine fear and furry

we learn who we are out here on the

Isle of Lewis’s furthest eastern reach

we savor the salt in our blood pounding

the dogs hear it and smell it too; they whine

“We’re both so small beside this rage

of waves; bark or batten down in silence:

our only options” and so we walk away

back from where we came and accept our lot

as strangers hanging on to the wild Scottish fringe

Terry Dawson is a retired Presbyterian minister and former adjunct faculty member at San Francisco Seminary. He recently relocated to Madison, Connecticut, but resided in Austin, Texas, for over two decades. While there, he produced the multicultural poetry, jazz, and live painting collaborative "Five Voizz Brush," wrote a guest column on faith for the Austin American-Statesman, and co-chaired the Jazz at St. James' committee of St. James' Episcopal Church. His poetry, essays, and fiction have appeared in many print and online journals over the past fifty years. He's authored two full-length collections of verse: the after: poems only a planet could love (Poets' Choice, 2022) and Pursuing the Ruin (Lamar University Literary Press, due out in 2026).