Castle Poetry

ISLAY BORN

Islay born, but only just
Waters breaking far too soon
Muddy midnight, puddled fields 
Bolted gates and pounding hearts
Painful potholes, stony lane
Island swallowed by the dark

What if there are complications?
You may need a specialist near
What if baby is in trouble?
You can’t go into labour here!

How different your start in life
Had you obeyed the Glasgow rules
A ward of noise and anxious mothers
A city full of smoke and grime
No loving dad to count your fingers
No loving hand to comfort mine

You chose Islay for your birthplace
Already putting family first
And on they came with love and laughter
Parents new and parents grand,
Uncles, cousins, beaming aunts
Faces soon to be familiar, 
Arms to hold you from your start

We left the island long ago
Too soon to really call it home
Summer night skies glowing brightly 
Sea and moorland, singing stones
Salt abrading every cranny
Rain and wind to strip your bones

I wonder now if, as an Ileach,
Or as Islander or Scot
Your views are very much affected
By where you’re born, offshore or not.
Is it place or is it people 
Who root you when it matters most?

From this island looking westward
Nothing interrupts the eye
Nothing but the grey Atlantic
Indistinct from sea to sky.
However, if the weather’s gracious
You may see the curve of earth
And maybe find that your perspective’s
Been deep-rooted from your birth.

Ileach: Man of Islay, pronounced ‘Eelyak’

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Barbi Akroyd is a Cornwall-based poet and member of the Launceston Poetry Stanza group. She says: ‘My life has been more concerned with Art than with Poetry. As a teacher working in ceramics I have spent years in schools, studios and youth clubs. It is only recently that I’ve felt free to explore and reflect on my life through writing.’