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  • I Mind On Ye But Little Ava
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I Mind On Ye But Little Ava

Alastair Mackie

I mind on ye but little ava
and I’m no that tane wi your fate,
but slicht tho the tryst was atween us twa
my saul tholes the stound o’t yet.

On purpose I pass your reid hoose by
abune the glaury watter-side
but I ken as I pass your reid hoose by
I sair vex your sun-drookt quait.

Tho it wisna you that ower my lips
boued doun for my love fu fain,
tho it wisna you that in gowden leids
immortalised my pain,

still I glaumer a dern oor
when the nichts are midnicht blue
and I foreken for certain sure
anither tryst wi you.

(from the Russian of Anna Akhmatova)


Alastair Mackie

from Collected Poems 1954-1994 (Two Ravens Press, 2012)

Reproduced by permission of the Estate of Alastair Mackie.

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Alastair Mackie1925 - 1995

Alastair Mackie has been called the best and the most underrated and woefully neglected Scots-writing poet of his generation.
More about Alastair Mackie

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