Alclud

by Stewart Sanderson

No one wakes in the country
where they closed their eyes.

Nor does any river ever
cross the same kingdom twice.

I, who was born here after
the shipyards and the other

heavy industries died
their un-inevitable deaths

will never know their like
for all I can imagine

well enough what it might
have meant to see the Clyde

crowded with cranes; the city
filled with foreign purpose

as the great hulls formed
rivet by rivet high above

the steel grey waters
in the eddies of their endless

change. Just so, I can
look past the Govan

rooftops, shifting very
slightly in the winter

sunlight and pretend
to myself that all this

is no more than a mirage
and that any moment

now I’ll find my eyelids
slipping open onto

the Cymric sunrise, hidden
under all my mornings.