Roots

The loudest voices

Are not the ones who have spoken the longest

In their mother tongue

A language that can outlive the sunken stone walls

And corrosions that come between love affairs

Of the sea and her shore

An eradication of names and maps

The places that we climbed with tiny bare feet

And wished upon lone-standing trees

Shaking cow feed in plastic buckets

Little hands hold a warm bottle for the new lamb

That lost its mother

Broken bike chains and scraped knees

Lost fishing floats and repaired creels

Does that not sound like life to you?

A language that can live outside of itself

For those who do not speak it

Still live in it; a land that speaks to us

If only you were quiet enough to listen

An island may stand on its own but its people cannot

And every spring the daisies return

And the moors are set alight

You cannot have a riot without the living

Our voices steady, honest, quiet

Tell me now how you cannot see this life

That will outlive you

The loudest voices

Are not the ones

With the deepest roots

But the deepest pockets

Greedy hands fumble in desperation

For a place that speaks to them

But I do not think such a place exists

The gift 

If I could buy back this land

And plant my house on it

Live in it

Grow on it

Would you feel in this feat of resilience

A harbouring sadness

For this place

I was rooted in

I could not blossom in

When it should have nurtured me

all this time

Or would you see promised land

A business endeavour

A great gift

To buy back a piece of earth

That all along,

should have been mine

 My father’s bones

The island is everything I am

I was born into it, made from it

like the rocks and sea and stars

what a wonderful thing

to know exactly who you are

tiny stones and sharp grasses

stick between my toes

on the path that my dad made

beside where his father’s bones lay

I want a spot where I can see the sea when I die

and I’ll be welcomed home with salty kisses on my cold cheeks

when the tide brings soft waves to wash over black gneiss

and machair flowers

is it normal to know where your bones will lie at the end of your life

before you’re even twenty-five?

ask me why I am not here and I hesitate

ask me Cò as a tha thu?

and I will tell you

I came out of this place

there was no mistake, a certainty that scares me

and grounds me

this place I hide away from, it is everything I am