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 once introduced.
[Necessary wider context to my poem is shared in the footnotes]
Last Monday
The only surviving son of Baad.
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 aivry-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 wer a’ sold
aifter yer daith.
[Oh, I shud hae said William, this is yer gairdener spakin’. Nae doot you recognise my voice]
TWO CENTURIES later [somewhere beyond a pause]
Last Monday, Peter walked though this gateway.
Footnotes:
*Nan Shepherd