Air Tràigh Bhostaidh - by
Air mo làimh chlì
/ tha tobhta;
/ air mo làimh dheis muir a’ gluasad.
/
/ Tha ’ghainmheach bhàn a’ sìneadh
/ fo mo leth-thaobh ’s mi air…
Air mo làimh chlì
/ tha tobhta;
/ air mo làimh dheis muir a’ gluasad.
/
/ Tha ’ghainmheach bhàn a’ sìneadh
/ fo mo leth-thaobh ’s mi air…
For James K Baxter
/
/ last day of summer
/ so they said on shore,
/ waves pounding gravel
/ gather dry drift
/ kauri Caledonian
/ washed up pine
/ to beach fire…
Up the airy mountain,
/ Down the rushy glen,
/ We daren’t go a-hunting
/ For fear of little men;
/ Wee…
Monday I found a boot –
/ Rust and salt leather.
/ I gave it back to the sea, to dance in.
/
/ Tuesday a spar…
A misty mornin’ doon the shore wi a hushed an’ caller air,
/ an’ ne’er a breath frae East or West…
A mile aff we catch a glisk
/ o Brekken beach: webbed
/ atween headlands, a glansin arc
/ o ancient shalls
/ sun sillered.
/
/ Waves aff Arctic floes
/ bank…
Behind convolvulus and seeding grass
/ we park.
/ We see not one scuff or rip on the Strait
/ to show
/ two thousand years and more…
I walk at the land’s edge,
/ turning in my mind
/ a private predicament.
/ Today the sea is indigo.
/ Thirty years an adult –
/ same mind,…
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