Kylesku - Poem

Kyleshu

   All afternoon the sun burned your forehead and face,
   driving for miles through peatscrapes,
   bare rock ridges rising from moorland, driving through rain,
   mist trailed past, the sunlight strong from the blue
   where the clouds were broken.

   We were the last to go through, after
   the bath or shower, the tables were pretty in heavy pink covers.
   Outside the windows the jetty slips down to the loch,
   and the boat pulls up past the seals,
   heads bobbing, water lapping the boat, leaning towards moorings.

   Blues come up out of the water, as darker blurs blend
   on the hills; the water is exactly [H.sub.2]O and moves
   in particular shapes all the time. The air smells of peat. I'm glad
   you're here, and know it's that
   the other way around, as well.

   It wouldn't be if there was any
   other way but this. The sea is hushed at dusk,
   and in the gloamin when I'll walk beside you, with you, up
   the sloping street with houses on the one side only,
   to where the sign this afternoon read `Post

   Office': your picture-cards all stamped and ready,
   written in your hand. I'll strain to hear
   nothing, clearly there, but welcome, quiet,
   welcome, and, keep moving, from
   the landscape all around us.

Alan Riach, formerly Associate Professor of English and Pro-Dean of the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences at the University of Waikato, New Zealand, is now Head of the Department of Scottish Literature at the University of Glasgow. Riach's books include Clearances, First & Last Songs, Open Return, This Folding Map, and a critical study, & Hugh MacDiarmid Epic Poetry. Riach is also the series editor of the collected works of Hugh MacDiarmid, published by Carcanet Press.

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