Sheenagh Pugh
Comfort
John Thomson, d 1618
You would have to know where he lived,
how his croft clung to a hillside
forty times its size, on sufferance.
To stand under meteor showers
and northern lights, under a sky so vast
it swallowed his voice,
to see daily the breathtaking sweep
of hills, green and purple breakers
of surging stone,
to hear the ravishing inhuman voices
of birds, water, wind. You would need
to look out from his land,
where the ocean glitters beyond what eyes
can bear, the view he shared with no one,
to understand John Thomson,
who, long ago, was strangled for seeking
the stable’s warmth and, with soft words
of comfort, making love to his mare.
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