The Piper At Glencoe Poem by Laurence Overmire

Glencoe in sunlight
Is glorious
Green treeless hills and
Rocky crags

A piper stands in his MacDonald
Kilt
Plays a lament that reverberates
Through the glen

Tourists with their cameras
Click and smile
A tour bus spewing fumes
The story getting lost

In the 21st century

The piper knows
Though the sun shines bright
Many a lost soul lingers
In these forgotten passes

If you listen closely
You can hear the screams
Of women and children
And frail, old men

One terrible night
Death and destruction
Kind and giving hosts betrayed
A government turned

On its people

It was not a Campbell-MacDonald dispute
Though many would have you
Believe it so
It was about a king demanding obedience

There is many a lesson to be learned
But so few seem willing to consider
In a world that turns its back on
History.

How could anyone with a heart
Commit such vile atrocities
And live with himself in the
Morning?

When does a soldier, duty-bound
Disobey an immoral order
At risk of his own personal
Advancement?

When does a people hold its
Government accountable?

When does love and honor and
Respect of all human beings
Supersede the petty, mean and
Violent ambitions of

Greedy, ego-driven fools?

Glencoe holds the answers perhaps
Trapped in the glen, trying to escape
The piper listens to the cries
And plays

If you look closely
You can see it in his face

The piper knows.

~ Laurence Overmire

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