Skip to content

The Hebridean Crab Apple

Inspired by the mystery of a crab apple tree discovered on an uninhabited outer-Hebridean island, Marjorie Lotfi reads her poem, The Hebridean Crab Apple. The film is directed by Savannah Acquah.
23rd April 2025

 

The Hebridean Crab Apple

by Marjorie Lotfi

—   mysterious lonely apple tree on uninhabited Hebridean island baffles scientists

 

This, I understand: the instinct to cling,

at any cost, to the place you are rooted,

to see another season through, though

the others seed elsewhere. Even in this

 

sedentary act you push the limit: winter

becomes summer becomes winter

and you are steadfast on your crag,

your outcrop. No one knows the shape

 

of your limbs against a darkening sky;

you question the need to grow against

the wind. Despite what they say,

there’s no mystery in simply holding on.

 

And what is home if not the choice —

over and over again —to stay?

 

 

‘The Hebridean Crab Apple’

Marjorie Lotfi, The Wrong Person to Ask (Bloodaxe Books, 2023)

 

Marjorie Lotfi

Marjorie Lotfi

Marjorie Lotfi is a poet, essayist and memoirist.

video

Preaching

'Preaching': A new poem by the T.S.Eliot Prize-winning poet Roger Robinson, from his forthcoming New and Selected Poems (Bloomsbury in 2026).

video

Walking in the Wake

Walking in the Wake was produced for the Estuary Festival (2021) in collaboration with Elsa James, Dubmorphology and Michael McMillan who meditates on the River Thames as we follow black pilgrims traversing sites of Empire.

Édouard Glissant’s Poetics of Relation

The rewards of reading the deliberately complex texts of the Antillian philosopher Édouard Glissant

Yvonne Brewster remembered

Remembering the life and legacy of the pioneering Jamaican theatre director and actress Yvonne Brewster

Jodhpurs, Tweeds and Monocles

Inheriting the patterns of life marked into second-hand clothing

Red Pockets

Alice Mah's memoir confronts the climate crisis while dragging the reader back from the brink of despair

The Legends of Them

A dream-like production set inside the subconscious mind of a high-flying, female reggae artist

The Loneliness of Sonia and Sunny

The Booker Prize 2025 shortlisted novel is a beautiful exploration of love and loneliness between two young people

Illuminating, in-depth conversations between writers.

Spotify
Apple Podcasts
Amazon Music
YouTube
Other apps
What we leave we carry, The series that tells the true-life stories of migration to the UK.

The series that tells the true-life stories of migration to the UK.

Spotify
Apple Podcasts
Amazon Music
YouTube
Other apps
Search