SEO AN T’AITE MU DHEIREADH The ultimate place (Gaelic)

you were the soft sad music tangled in the branches

quivering in the deep shade of alder and birch

beneath Ben Nevis


you were the sun slanting through clouds

spinning mist on the hills

steaming from the nets coiled by Loch Coruisk


you were the sharp scent of bog-myrtle

the silver shimmer of reeds in the marsh

the jewels of primrose and tormentil scattered through the meadow


the ridge is dark and desolate now

the burn a jagged scar slashed into granite

its cold life seeping into the peat


now you are gone

cattle are lowing in the glen

restive for the uncropped sweetness of the highlands

the herring fleet is hostage in the harbour

the savage ransom of the sea refused


now you are gone

there will be no respite of grain

there will be no satisfaction of salmon

the hearth is dank and grey


like thrift to the cliff face

I cling to the vision of your homecoming

grief foaming 'round fingers of rock

my spirit reckless as the gannets

plunging through sea spume

soaring over the headlands


~ by Yvonne MacKenzie