16 NOVEMBER 1962, Page 25

Iona

tasking in the Bay at the Back of the Ocean lay one black stone the sun could not unglisten; a round, wet seal, which neither pulling motion of wind nor wave could make appear to listen- night-stillness flapped upon by day's commotion.

tintil it suddenly raised its bald old head and stared at me with the soft eyes of a woman: stared at my eyes, as if in them it read snme sign that linked the worlds of seal and human,

then, baffled, flippered silently and fled

back to its world of aimless seas and tides holding within blind hands our world, where we 13.11ilosophise to straddle the divides I.b.at rob experience of totality,

hinting in such mute glances what it hides.

MAURICE LINDSAY