In Coull Kirkyard,2023 Poem by Sheena Blackhall

Around me lie my farming ancestors
We are united, kith and kin together
They are beyond life's sorrows and its pleasures

Behind us, Morven, robed in mist and heather
For centuries it's overlooked my people
Through sun and storm, the vagaries of weather

It's sheltered smugglers, castle, kirk an steeple
This land of Byron, loyal to Prince Charlie
Where peesies cry and curlews whirl and wheeple

Here Jacobites once plotted in each byre
With guns and claymores hidden with the cattle
And lairds foregathered to prepare, conspire

Leading their tenants off to fight in battle
Leaving uncut their fields of burnished barley
Struck down in combat, where the war drums rattle

This Howe's the land of Druid stone and ceilidh
Of ancient mills and ruins, ghost- imbued
The ploughshare's dogged by gull-clouds, shrill and screechy

Decades ago a child was once abused
The crime unpunished. Trauma turned her simple
A wife was beaten. Witches were accused

Not all lie here at Coull, for many fell
Buried in Europe. Each, a mother's jewel
Scythed down by world wars, death's wicked sickle

Here lovers lie, who tholed the cutty stool
Absolved in death of any guilt or shame
Still, in the heat of summer, winter's cool

I scan the stones. I recognize each name
Middleton, Craib, Ross, Anderson and Coutts
The green grass grows on every grave the same

Across the century, blood- tangled roots
Dwindle to bones, while dust devours the rest
My laughing granddaughters poke up fresh shoots

The wild, the pious, worthless and the best
Dwell where bright butterflies and night moths glide
And blackbird pours an anthem from her breast

Here, every sleeper, lying side by side
Has set aside their hopes, their dreams, their pride
And when my little reel of life has run
I'll rest beside my father, mother, son