A Skirl o’Pipes

The moaning of  the bagpipes… my Scottish muse Suzana Wylie (Susan Wylie Wilson) recognizes the overlay of bitter tears on the history of Scotland and on the very lives of her people.

This flash poem was inspired by my own impoverished prose, seen on this site (on the page titled “SWD 8”).

The skirl of the bagpipes
The haunting of the moor
Call forth from lowering sky
Bean Nighe, tilting up her washing tub
To pour her grief upon the world.
There is no world but Highland.
All else can matter not
The pipes alone can call this mourning
Of a clan, of a family, of a people.
Grief is the fruit of Scotland,
Gleaned from the corners of the song
The notes that sit but are not sung
Driven downward toward the earth
By the beat of kestrel wings
To meet the purple thistle-heads
Thrust up from blood drenched soil.