© 2006  Ward Abel

          Firth

It was 1979.

Leaving out of King's Cross station,

London, we had two bottles of Port

and some egg/tomato sandwiches.

By the time we crossed the Tyne

we were buzzed, thick, distant,

smiling.

I had a cassette player,

played some Celtic compilations.

Later as we approached Edinburgh

under darkness

an orchestra hummed something

that I've since forgotten.

And in our youth we felt like

drunken Caesars with nowhere to sleep;

but in triumph.

The cab that picked us up

beyond the station

took us up a hill (at least it seemed)

to a section of town where people

actually lived and worked,

and to a guest-house-with-pub

that had just closed.  The cabbie

probably got a kickback from the owners,

but we were glad to be anywhere,

anywhere in that fantastic setting

of rock and kindness; no one shunning

just admiring my accent.  And I theirs.  

They even reopened the pub, and there

we drank until very, very late.  As I

stumbled up the stair and entered my small room

I looked out the window, and wondered how

this Southern boy had come to be here.

At city's edge

(or so it seemed like an edge) a dead volcano

hovered, beckoned me to dream.

Wrote a poem as I sat on the bed:

Arthur's Seat at Night

On that windy hill

I felt 

the city

flash.

Seas of the North

held my palms,

combed my

hair.

Yellow lights, castles,

The Seat

in rock

blown;

For a moment

I was ancient,

then I felt

my young face.

Later I did sleep,

(or at least it seemed like sleep)

a sleep  

caked with a millennium

of strangers like me

in such ideal settings

without time to dwell

on reality and

the certainty of coming gales,

only time to paint then repaint

paulo post futurum

for  

retro-

spection,

and with young faces

All poems are copyrighted property of Ward Abel.

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