Alba

Recollections swirl amid
the chaos of my brain
like the leaves falling so
suddenly
from the still-green trees
in an eerie and autumnal
haze, rendering the trees cold and
bare.

Their emptiness fills the
back of my mind where
the drone of bagpipes
echoes-
-not as a nuisance,
but as a reminder
of the promise made that

One day I shall return
to the land of my love
and once more I shall walk
the streets against a
bitter wind
in the twilight
of an
early afternoon,

Feeling just as content
as a less hardy woman might
on the white sands
of some
tropical beach.
Give me the purple thistle,
the grey of streets and sea and sky,
The orange hillsides of dying heather

bathed in a light such
as I
have seen nowhere else
in all of my (short) life.
A westerly glow:
ethereal,
fleeting-
but at the same time

etched
indelibly
in my memory.