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Pietà

Alastair Mackie

Her face was thrawed.
She wisna aa come.

In the trams o her airms
the wummin held oot her first bairn.
It micht hae been a mercat day
and him for sale.
Naebody stoppit tae niffer.

His life bluid cled his breist
wi a new reid semmit.
He’d hippens for deid claes.

Aifter the boombers cleck
and the sodgers traik thro the skau
there’s an auld air sterts up –
bubblin and greetin.

It’s a ballant mithers sing
on their hunkers i the stour
for a bairn deid.

They ken it by hert.

It’s the cauldest grue i the universe
yon skelloch.
It niver waukens the deid.


Alastair Mackie

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

Reproduced by permission of the Estate of Alastair Mackie.

Tags:

Christianity death of a child Grief & Sorrow Scots Scots
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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.
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