My daughter was not a romantic.
Raised in a flat land
Where only the future counted,
She'd no time
For the time-honoured
Or the timeless -
(Though she'd heard the ballads from me.)
The sublime for her
Was a new housing estate
With all mod cons
And a kindergarten.
The more light the better
Was her motto.
I took her to see
Some of England's stately piles
But she soon rebelled.
'Why should I look at ruins?'
She said, she who'd been born
And bred in Germany.
I tried ambush,
Sprung King's College Chapel on her
(There was light and height enough surely.)
But we were hardly through the door
When she said
'Let's get out of here,
It smells of mouse-shit.'
Apprehensive for my heritage,
I took her to Scotland.
At the town of Callander
She stood on the brink
Of the wild and womanhood,
Eyeing with mild contempt
A tawdry funfair
By the foam-tongued river,
While I,
As ever,
Scanned the driech hillsides,
Loath to press my case,
Cursing the blot on the landscape,
knowing
My immortality hung in the balance.
And then the clouds parted.
'Look, Jenny,' I said.
She turned,
Looked up, and saw
Ben Ledi's disembodied head
Aglare through the cloud-rift.
The clear, appraising eyes looked long,
Looked till the unearthly
Piece of earth was veiled.
And then she whispered in a muted shout
'Farewell ye dark and lonely hills'
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©Renate Mitchell.
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