The following poem is addressed to Robert Hepburn who died in Temple, 1798. It is based on a stone gateway that has out-survived the house that it long since introduced.
[Necessary wider context to my poem is shared in the footnotes]
Last Monday
The only surviving son of Baad, you did guid.
Jist a bairn you lost yer faither.
It wis yer mither that you followed
through this gateway.
Summer 1786:
and a June day that you naiver forgot!
Appointed Scotland’s new Commisioner fae Customs:
arrivals and exits wer noo yer aivery-day!
Whit a summer that wis!
Aye Herschel wis far seeing
Maister, ye wer guid tae me. I will naiver forget that.
Maister, you died afae young and I miss you!
Yer hoose is noo lang gan,
but yer mither’s gateway
still stands in a muddy field *
The ‘REMARKABLE FINE BEEF’
that you raised in this field wis a’ sold
aifter yer daith.
[Oh, I shud hae said, this is William, yer gairdener spakin’. Nae doot you recognise my voice]
COSMIC PAUSE.
TWO CENTURIES later [somewhere beyond a pause]
Peter walked though this gateway.
Footnotes:
*Nan Shepherd