In Coull Kirkyard,2023

Around me lie my farming ancestors We are united, kith and kin together They are beyond life's sorrows and its pleasures Behind us, Morven, robed in mist and heather For centuries it's overlooked my people Through sun and storm, the vagaries of weather It's sheltered smugglers, castle, kirk an steeple This land of Byron, loyal to Prince Charlie Where peesies cry and curlews whirl and wheeple Here Jacobites once plotted in each byre With guns and claymores hidden with the cattle And lairds foregathered to prepare, conspire Leading their tenants off to fight in battle Leaving uncut their fields of burnished barley Struck down in combat, where the war drums rattle This Howe's the land of Druid stone and ceilidh Of ancient mills and ruins, ghost- imbued The ploughshare's dogged by gull-clouds, shrill and screechy Decades ago a child was once abused The crime unpunished. Trauma turned her simple A wife was beaten. Witches were accused Not all lie here at Coull, for many fell Buried in Europe. Each, a mother's jewel Scythed down by world wars, death's wicked sickle Here lovers lie, who tholed the cutty stool Absolved in death of any guilt or shame Still, in the heat of summer, winter's cool I scan the stones. I recognize each name Middleton, Craib, Ross, Anderson and Coutts The green grass grows on every grave the same Across the century, blood- tangled roots Dwindle to bones, while dust devours the rest My laughing granddaughters poke up fresh shoots The wild, the pious, worthless and the best Dwell where bright butterflies and night moths glide And blackbird pours an anthem from her breast Here, every sleeper, lying side by side Has set aside their hopes, their dreams, their pride And when my little reel of life has run I'll rest beside my father, mother, son