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  • Camas Tuath
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Camas Tuath

Tom Buchan

Pink sand and sandpipers pink in the setting
sun and pink granite and the pink swirl
of green waves: no mediterranean relics
here, no ruined amphitheatres, no amphorae,

no half-submerged statuary – only the
children’s wet sand-pies and a standing
stone, a druidic lingam standing for nothing
anyone knows about nowadays, a stony

finger, green with years, specific of an idea
which was no doubt straight, strong and complex
once, but is now obliterated by the hysterical
cries of children and the birds’ pink squealing.


Tom Buchan

from Dolphins at Cochin (London: Barrie & Rockliff/The Cresset Press, 1969)

Reproduced by permission of Lawrence Buchan.

Tags:

Argyll prehistoric remains seashore
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Tom Buchan1931 - 1995

Tom Buchan was a poet and playwright of restless energy whose place in the third wave of the Scottish Literary Renaissance was uneasy, and who though bound to Scotland, always sought alternative paths and an alternative voice.
More about Tom Buchan

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