Lament
So you are going away
damn you
and me to stay
to face
November and December
all alone
north wind blowing
rough sea flowing through
green days of grace
the sheltered place
bless you
we spent in lovely sin.
About this poem
This poem was included in Best Scottish Poems 2005. Best Scottish Poems is an online publication, consisting of 20 poems chosen by a different editor each year, with comments by the editor and poets. It provides a personal overview of a year of Scottish poetry. The editor in 2005 was Richard Price.
Editor's comment:
The simplicity of a diary entry or an inscription on a wall, almost pre-aged with its slightly old-fashioned register, but with a heart-felt, lean and prosodic balance; it begins as if it might be a curse but ends in fond memory.
Author's note:
'Lament' is one of a pair of poems – the other is 'Riddle' – which were written when I was reading a lot of early Irish literature. Human emotions are rarely unmixed or unambiguous and I have tried to let my poems reflect something of that complexity of feeling. The great attraction for me of literature from tribal societies – Homeric Greece, pre-conquest Ireland – is its directness and urgency of expression and – very often – its linguistic virtuosity.
