Lament
So let the piper make his drones lament
find the music for words best unsaid
that say she’s gone that say she’s dead
but she is not gone she is here instead
in my arms as we dance together
gazing into each other’s eyes
that time I stumbled with surprise
finding I’d suddenly realized
red faced stupid adolescent
what love is
and now I’ll cry
and now I’ll grieve
so let the piper start the drone’s lament
unsay those words that say she’s dead
let her music herald spring
let her elope once more from Death
dance winter into spring
with her young love
give birth to summer
let the piper raise our hearts and welcome in
another year another harvest to begin.
I’ll walk the path we trod before that led us through the woods
to where we crossed Chirdon Burn where it dropped two feet as it rushed
on to the north fork of the river Tyne where we stepped over boulders
big standing firm against the stream that splits off the Cleugh right there
near Goat Linn where there’s a spring coming from Roughside
with a two-gallon canister in each hand fetching water from a stream.
By Chirdon Burn I’ll wander where my love and I once walked
alone except for a birdwatcher’s hut by water’s edge where we talked.
And that was where she went no further for she wanted to go on from me
we’d passed a full-fledged tawny owl being mobbed by birds in a tree.
No, you can’t keep it, it’s wild, set it free She’d taken it anyway back to our bothy
from the drystone wall where she found it. We kept it and fed it and then it flew free.
From Allerybank we’d found her from Roughside near enough
was it her, songbirds were trying to kill in the valley of the Cleugh?
Leaves moving in time pluck melodies from the breeze
she tamed wild birds and played with foxes
so let the piper make his drones lament
as he fingers notes for words best unsaid that say you’ve gone that say you’re dead
and gone and now I’ll cry and now I’ll grieve walking the path we walked instead
Richard M Russell © Dick Russell
August 2022
