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  • fram da far-haaf
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fram da far-haaf

Robert Alan Jamieson

Wake up man! Waken! Listen!

What?
What is it?

Oh what a dream I’ve had, what a dream!
You mustn’t put out to sea today!
A voice was crying out to me
“This is the storm,
This is the first fierce cloud to gather”
Look to the west’ard!

A raincloud over the headland, a mist!

What a dream!
Foolish heart to fly in the face of omen.
The boat they found last Thursday,

A freak!

Upturned,
When the sea had been silent for days.
O, the dream I’ve had.


Robert Alan Jamieson

extract from fram da far-haaf: a sang-poyim fir twa voisis in Shetlandic and English (the author, 1992)

Reproduced by permission of the publisher.

Tags:

danger disaster dreams fishing National Poetry Day 2007 omens poems on postcards Shetlandic weather

About this poem

fram da far-haaf National Poetry Day postcard 2007

This poem was reproduced on a postcard for National Poetry Day 2007. Eight poetry postcards are published each year by the Scottish Poetry Library to celebrate National Poetry Day and are distributed throughout Scotland to schools, libraries and other venues. The theme for 2007 was dreams. You can find out more about National Poetry Day in our National Poetry Day pages, where you’ll also find resources to go with the poems.

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Robert Alan Jamiesonb.1958

Robert Alan Jamieson is a Shetland-born poet and novelist who writes in, and translates into, his native Shetlandic.
More about Robert Alan Jamieson

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