The Sunday Post

Old man thinking.

Oars, held still, drop

on black water

tiny roulades
of waterdrops.
With their little sprinkling
they people
a big silence.

You who are long gone,

my thoughts of you are like that:
a delicate, clear population
in the big silence
where I rest on the oars and
my boat
hushes ashore.

Norman MacCaig.

May 1967.

Photo of East Lothian by Alistair