Kilmartin: A Poem We Cannot Read Poem by Sally Evans

Kilmartin: A Poem We Cannot Read



We came to Kilmartin across the stone bridge
in the dip past the village, ‭ ‬where you observed
the fish and the compass points in your poem, ‭
‬the needles of them in your Gaelic, ‭
‬a small bridge and a necessary bridge
on the journey from modern day Glasgow
to the culture the church had to cover, ‭
‬sculpted stones the church wished to better, ‭
‬heaped mounds no one could pretend
has as little significance as needle-points, ‭
‬but the people who lived here will not die, ‭
‬their raised cairns, ‭ ‬their tall pillars, ‭
‬their alignments in thoroughfares
between higher hills, ‭ ‬their spells
still cast over visitors, ‭ ‬residents
living for a large part on their lucre, ‭
‬the people who lived here are adamant, ‭
‬they visit us out of our past, ‭ ‬of our ancestors: ‭
‬theirs were our grandmother's jet beads
and her copper and beakers, ‭ ‬shapes probably
not from Ireland, ‭ ‬nor birdsong on eagles‭' ‬bones
but just that smidgen behind our own memory
where our language does not go, ‭
‬so we'll hear the poem of our history
possibly in p-Celtic and leave it there.

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