9 : Hunger
Across the long years
Most falls away forgotten.
Only a few fragments of song
On the scented wind,
A few stinging scars, tight and bitter,
Too highly regarded, dog-ends
Of disastrous choices,
Fit meat only for tales
Not for policies, not for futures.
Where there is gold:
There the cold-eyed, sly-smiled gather.
Where there is strife:
The carrion-eaters swoop in.
The hoodie cries
(Pecking at the eyes and brains of lambs),
Give us our freedom.
Too long have we been hunted,
Hung slack and bloody on barbed wire.
The martens cry
(As they bury into the bellies
Of the flock),
Give us our independence
To feed where we will
The endless, remorseless hunger
That comes summer or winter,
At ice-melt and frost fall.
The wily foxes circle,
Scenting an opportunity of gold,
Warm red crunch
In the dark hay loft.
To be left at peace
To be unhindered and honest,
Not to be slighted nor chivied,
Herded and diminished,
Nor subjected to the slow death
Of parasites,
Their cunning confusions,
Tongues of deceit,
Gold-grabbing fingers.
The freedom to belong
Is born with your each new breath,
Not with long lines of bloodshed,
Not with boundary stones.
Only when the bones crumble,
Where the fat feeds the soil
When the breath sighs, mingling
With the sedges on the loch-side,
Do we wholly belong.
Those who stand here,
And those who have died here:
They have the right to belong,
Like old MacLeod belongs,
Named and pinned under heaven
Until Time wipes even
The slumbering mountain away.
The ocean river squeezed through Sleat,
Fast, eternal,
At last leapt by stone.
The distant shore, desolate, silent
Hands reaching, never meeting.
Where you make your centre
Is where you are.
Where you belong
Your heart alone knows.
There is no language worth speaking
If it is not in kindness.
That it moves, whether fast or slow,
Voice and song
Are our only gifts to the universe.
We are not adversaries who struggle
For small freedoms, for the upper hand.
There is too much to be lost,
There is not enough to go around,
Never a second chance
When the wolves make the choices
Of who and when and where
A sacrifice is required.
From what will you escape?
What fiscal policy,
What redistribution of wealth,
Will free a pinched, aching heart
Filled with fear and debris,
The slurry of history,
The failures of others.
I have tasted a whisky in the hills,
Honey warm and smooth,
That in the city burned black and harsh…..
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simonhlilly 