Urlar

by John Bolland

In 1626…

Padraig McCrimmon’s sons pass
from clan to meat and memory.  
Smallpox.

Padraig’s father, unforgiving,
burned some houses in Glenelg and killed
in vengeance for his brother’s murder.  
Who will avenge this massacre?

A prodigal returned, they say.  
Sang at the ceilidh, prayed in the kirk.  
Blameless.  
Infectious.
Plagued.  
He died.  So many died.  His seven sons.  
Seven out of eight.
 
It happens in strange weather.
Heat shimmers on Dunvegan Loch.  
The burns run dry. Black cattle
cool themselves knee-deep in lochans.
Lose themselves in shade beneath the oaks.
Offshore, the busses bulge with maizies
mad to spawn but gill-caught gutted salted.
Barrels of dead herring
extracted and exported.
Ex.
He is the piper to the laird McLeod.
He shuffles notes
in lines of four

A B A B
* A B A.  

That silence is his namesake.
Padraig Og.  His one surviving.
Scarred.
Disfigured.
Death

in such fine weather is a wonder, is it not?
The world awash with fire, within, without.

Can you make melody
when 7 out of 8 tones are missing?  
This is the beginning.  1626.  
Sugar pans bubbling stirred
by plantation slaves.
Sweetness.  Smoke.