No Ruined Stone
You saturate the sight
of those who come after, poets
and painters alike. Your words invade
my mind’s listening, manacle
my tongue when I try to speak
on all I backward cast my eye
and fear and canna see.
Who would I have been
to you, what stone
in the ruined house of the past?
In this world, I am unloosed, belonging
to no country, no tribe, no clan.
Not African. Not Scotland.
And you, voice that stalks
my waking and dreaming,
you more myth than man,
cannot unmake history.
So why am I here
resurrecting you to speak
when your silence gulfs centuries?
Why do I find myself
at your doorstep, knocking,
when I know the dead
will never answer?
About this poem
No Ruined Stone imagines what might have happened if Robert Burns had sailed from Scotland in 1786, as planned, to take a job on a slave plantation in Jamaica. Supported by research, it is a subtle, multi-layered verse narrative, voiced mainly by the poet himself and later by his granddaughter, passing for white. The worlds it vividly presents beget reflections on creativity, history, slavery, race and many other issues. It is an exceptional work, a memorable achievement.
—Mervyn Morris
