Brownsbank Cottage by Andrew McCallum
A breath of wind catches in the gean-tree,
fluttering the dry leaves and the small change of the sun,
and it seems for a moment that the light is whispering.
There are ghosts in this place.
They are to be heard in the mouse-scratchings,
the seedpods cracking in the tindered broom,
the suck of the draught beneath the kitchen door.
The Grieves still move through these two rooms
in slow mutual orbits, with no need for words,
familiar and comfortable in their companionship;
two chittering lights, fingering the relics of their lives
and touching lightly the lingering echoes of the
laqughter and the poetry with which the silence thrums.
And on such an evening as this,
when we have silence yet over the Border hills,
and the gloaming gathers close about the door,
on the doorstep his voice still softly sings:
The rose of all the world is not for me...
Andrew McCallum bides an haes e’s ruits in Biggar. A version of ‘Brownsbank Cottage’ was first published in The Eildon Tree in 2005, and originated a year earlier as a reading for South Lanarkshire’s Doors Open Day. ‘Brounsbank et Nicht’ is a mair recent manifestation.
