Maybe By The Tide Poem by jim hogg

I think I saw him on the hill
A camera in his hand
Or maybe on the Creechan shore
Just standing on the sand

Or working at the Foghorn point
Where seagulls glide and keen
His mind on walls and no through roads
In twenty seventeen


I might have heard him in the glen
That winds down to the bay,
An echo on the wind perhaps,
Or whispers from the waves

Primroses dare the steep glensides
Where he'd have stopped and thought
Of tender petals on the wind
Of wars that men have fought


Or maybe in the old churchyard
Down by the cold White Loch
You might have seen him writing down
The name of someone lost

And while he thinks of threads that bind
And which of these applies:
'a time to rend, a time to sew',
A single Heron flies.


It lands beside the water's edge
By castles old and new
And all its ruin, all its thrill
It cannot choose or rue

Or maybe from the cliff you saw
Him working creels below
Along the Ells to Money Head
Just fifty years ago


Or, too severe to wander where
there's only praise or ease,
you'll maybe find him in his boat
in search of rougher seas.

At night you'll maybe see him walk
Along the riverside
Where others waited, others wept,
Or maybe by the tide


10 02 17