Having grown up in the Highlands and not leaving them often, when I first moved to Edinburgh of course all the tourist destinations were on my to do list, the Castle being at the top. Hidden multiple times through history to protect the sovereignty of the country, the Scottish ‘Honours’, or regalia, are now displayed in Edinburgh Castle as the oldest regalia in Britain. To view them you must walk through hallways lined with history and artwork tracing their story and those of the people who handled them.
Far off the glens of my home
stretch their limbs in Scottish sun,
a long sigh escapes the
jagged teeth of the mountains
and the unicorn wails,
mane bloodied, legs chained and broken.
These ancient halls, dormant
as the volcanic seat the
throne sits atop, whisper
ghosts of a future never born.
King promised, kin slain,
hope and desperate fear.
A passage lined with history
beckons me continue as
heart shatters among the
fragments. Artifacts and arts
of the past live shadowed
by sacrificed walls and lives.
I feel Grainger’s fear as
worn hand meets royal metal,
heart loose as feet flee into
that dark night, back breaking as
church flag stones slide
back into place, guarding
safe the realms future,
present, past.
I feel the horror of a boy,
born and raised in service,
sheltered ‘neath table as
English quarries hammer at
Scottish walls, engines of war
their only language.
I feel the end times
wash over the people,
sacrifice a raging inferno
as their seat of power burns
lest the enemy take it as their own.
Ancestral home or no,
the southern scourge came.
As we turn that final bend,
a wave of loss I never knew
descends, resolve breaking,
bone aching, tears pouring as
lost regalia, found once more,
whisper ghosts of a future
never born.
– Danny
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