The Highland Clearances Poem by Laurence Overmire

The Great of my great great great grandparents fled
The bonnie shores of Scotland
Pinched for a penny by unscrupulous lairds
The time the land was cleared
A human no match for a breeding sheep.

Herded to a boat on a forbidding sea
The fatal winds to blow them—
Some would succeed and others would die—
To America, Canada and
Far-off New Zealand.

The made their way as best they could
New lives planted in a stranger's field
Looking forward, not glancing back
Suns rising, moons falling
Every day a possibility

But there will always be the lingering cry
The broken song of the Highlands
To be forced away
From the home you love
The place of your belonging.

~ Laurence Overmire

[Previously published in The Ghost of Rabbie Burns: An American Poet's Journey Through Scotland, Indelible Mark Publishing,2016]