Hamecoming

Hamecoming


In the lee of John Knox’s yew
we toss our cabers as though
it’s the natural thing to do after breakfast.
Over the firth, Dumbarton Rock
is mired in mist, or ghosts,
like the braes of Ben Jiggery Pokery
or the sheen in the American’s eye
as he imagines the cabers of his forebears
abandoned in Lochaber years ago.
Tomorrow we will rake a rickle of stones,
be blood brothers in a chapel buried
in the wilds, and toast our common bonds
in fists of malt, for are we not all wedded
to the same shifting territory of mind,
a country that is and isn’t, as substantial
as a sea-loch’s soughing,
the whisper of an editorial,
the distant ring of tills in the gloaming?