At the time I was four years old
I went to glean with the women,
Working the way they told;
My eyes were blue like blue-bells,
Lighter than oats my hair;
I came from the house of the Haldanes
Of work and thinking and prayer
To the God who is crowned with thorn,
The friend of the Boar and the Bear,
But oh when I went from there,
In the corn, in the corn, in the corn,
I was married young to a hare!
We went to kirk on the Sunday
And the Haldanes did not see
That a Haldane had been born
To run from the Boar and the Bear,
And the thing had happened to me
The day that I went with the gleaners,
The day that I built the corn-house,
That is not built with prayer.
For oh I was clean set free,
In the corn, in the corn, in the corn,
I had lived three days with the hare!
1978
Living in a village is walking
Among snare wire, being
The bulge-eyed rabbit, ware of
The light heart, dancing gossip-stoats, the blood-lipped,
Biding their time.
Living in the Big House is being
The big stag, the twelve-pointer,
Watched on, edible, spied and lied to,
From burrows, runways, witch-twisted bushes, and most
From the hoodies’ rock where the observant, the cautious, the hungry hoodies
Feed upon small game still, hoping for bigger,
And bide their time.
1978
Those two had shepherds, hunched above their sheep,
Dreaming of blood and pain and the long sleep
In their too certain circumstance of when:
Two black shepherds and myself and the Glen.
If you speak ill of the shepherds, speak it low;
Wait for the winter, they say, wait for the snow,
Wait for the night of the Campbells, the day of the fox,
The frayed rope and the boot that slips on the rocks.
1978
The months and the years pass
Quickly, as good years can
For a blithe and sober man
With a daughter like a small rose
And a lamp lit in his heart.
And the anger of Scotland grows,
The need and anger of Scotland.
And I must take my part.
One man and another
Passing the sleeper, cries
Alba, Alba, Alba!
Will you stop your dreaming at last,
Wake out of a smother
Of old dreams and old lies?
As when Tom Johnston passed
Through the sleep of Carradale
Then back to sleep for some
But the County Council for me
With work and fighting to come.
The old scar skins over
But the shape of the cut stays,
As stays the strength of the promise,
As stand the hills of Scotland
To the end of the years and days.
And you, Donnachadh Bàn,
For her green and comely veil,
Have planned and planted a forest.
And myself, the laird and writer,
Neither did I fail
Over building of roads and houses
And a harbour for Carradale.
And each looks to the other
For the heart-word of praise.
It is work and love for the mending
Of an often broken promise:
After ill and false intending
Of all the centuries past,
Faith between Highlands and Lowlands.
At last and at long last
There will be getting and spending
For the sake of Alba, our mother,
There will be hope and life,
The pibroch over the hill
And the fiery cross of good will,
And I see my poem’s ending
And the cleansing of the knife.
1978