Well, this has been a long day’s travel and tomorrow I anticipate hard conversations. But tonight I am in the Bib-Rambla, and it feels like I have been away a very long time. I am having beer and paella.Tomorrow can worry about itself.

Ten years ago today Dad died.

We learned about it two days later. He died in hospital after being admitted for God knows what. Then he seemed OK so they were going to discharge him, then he died asleep in a hospital bed. Because of the anomaly (if he was well enough to discharge, why did he die?) they had to do an autopsy, and there it was; lung malignancy, COPD, hypertension. He was in his early 70s.

Do I miss him? Not the real him, I don't think. I mythologised him perhaps, aware of the dangers of doing so and yet... there was a magical aspect to him too. I wrote this poem and it became his. I post it here something like every year. Bro wept when I read it out loud and said Dad wasn't worth it. That's true too. And here's the thing; if Mum or Bro die before me, there won't be a single poetic line I can write about them, because they are too stark, too close to the root of me, too real. I get the privileged position I am in, to see all these intersections between worlds and dreams, people trying to get by and the same people as, I don't know, other at the core, but it's a stupid gift really. Doesn't actually do anything.

Anyway, Dad's Song. It's his Scottishness, his Irishness, his anger, his wandering, his imagination. I don't know if it's his homecoming.

DAD'S SONG

At Lughnasadh
I burned them all, my foes
once dancing with the dead
Went up in sparks of faded ire that rose
where once I scratched the doorways of my head
now sunward led
‘Where is the one beloved, the poet’s gold
Where are the songs of all my ancestors
Severed from me, and lost in sea and mire?'
They answered, ‘We are on the hills unknown
And in the bone
left from the funeral pyre
The winds we shake and you
And you we wake
hare-fleet and falcon-eyed beyond the tower
Behold, old Lughnasadh! Your people’s fire!'
None by the white maned sea could track me then
A wanderer by watchtowers unseen
Nor could the sages of the woven lands
unpick the fairy roads by lantern’s gleam
Their tapestries undone by end of day
The changeling way, as in a fever dream.
Marsh bitterns picked my steps through coldling fens
and called me by their piping;
flickering worm
And frostbit moon forlorn
showed me old Grendel
Riding through the dawn
Riddled me silver, never to forget
a stranger’s promise:
‘Home for Lughnasadh
Where your own people light the fires yet!’

I've put this on substack, I don't know why. Playing with it I guessm not sure I'm doing it right but I've really got to get on with dire paperwork. If you want to visit the substack and tell me if it's workingTM here's the link.

https://open.substack.com/pub/smokingboot/p/home-before-lughnasadh?r=1r9jj7&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&showWelcomeOnShare=true

Well the day turned pretty bad pretty fast. I need to go somewhere and scream, start again tomorrow.

Out we went to North Berwick to have that conversation we always have whenever we go to North Berwick.

'Should we have moved here?'

We'd have paid easily 20% more on a smaller newbuild for a North Berwick postcode on account of its pretty & posh combo, plus the connections in and out of Edinburgh and Glasgow are rubbish. Nights out at the Fringe would have been difficult if not impossible. On the other hand those newbuilds gained value very fast because of said postcode. On the third hand, you could barely make out the sea from them, and what I wanted would be on the coast or in the old town. On the fourth hand, those sea-facing houses leak heat badly in Winter. A woman who lived there described it to us as chucking five pound notes out through her front door. So having used up four hands at least, we always return to the same decision; better to visit as and when. Yesterday was definitely the when.

Back to the roar of the sea and its white horses riding, little boats in the harbour and the sun so warm and bright as the afternoon came in under that perfect blue sky. We wandered the streets- OK, street, there's basically only one for shopping - bought a little here and there. Then down to the water, and we just walked, not even far.

The sun grew even brighter on the way home past hills and fields. It was a very beautiful day.

By night my dreams were a little strange. I was at a raucous party full of friends, people I half remembered, and others who were perfect strangers. I was talking with someone I barely knew when I noticed that the person next to them, who almost but not quite had their back to me, was Nuclear Man! He was hovering there like a shark in the water. I used the time honoured method of dashing to the loo to wait for friends and share this discovery so we could gossip at the horror of it. Someone came in and we started talking and away floated that dream... then suddenly I saw my brother, much younger, his image in sharp relief. I sent him what I can best describe as a psychic hug, green light and my arms around him.

La Flaca came to fetch the musician.  She stepped over the threshold and he knew her straight away for her cheeks were hollow and her eye sockets were empty. 

'Come in, skinny girl,' he said. 'Make yourself at home, for I am not leaving til I finish my work. Help yourself to food if you like.' 

La Flaca looked around her in wonder. The whole shack was full of music manuscripts in rolled and crumpled sheaves piled from floor to ceiling or crammed against the windows.

'If you had food,' she observed, 'I would not be here.' He shrugged and La Flaca sat down. 'Your family will be waiting,' she said.

At that, he paused playing and flexed his hands.

'I never had a family,' he said, 'no father, no mother, no sweetheart, no children. All  that I ever had was this,' he began playing again, 'and no-one really wanted it.' 

With that the keys took his melody into the air and La Flaca sat back prepared to be patient. But the musician, who had never known another audience in all his life, did not stop. She wondered if perhaps he could not.

So she called up all who had loved him and the notes themselves came. Among them flowed the elegant, the witty, the whimsical, the loving, the tragic, each of them singular, dancing to its own creation. There was such a throng that the musician could not ignore them. His fingers stilled aghast at their beauty, and in that moment, like the rustle of rain turning into thunder, came their applause. Maestro! They cried,  cheering, bravissimo! Maestro!

Among them stood one older and sweeter than even his music, gazing at him like no other. 
Well done, came the words, I am so proud of you.

With that, the musician stood up, bowed to them all and walked into the sunlight. The crowd followed him.

A long time later he saw La Flaca again, though this time she was far from skinny. Her cheeks were full, her eyes sparkled, and her body was round with a promise he could barely believe.
 
'Who would have thought it?' He laughed, gesturing at her happy belly. 

'It is time,' she agreed, 'but not if you are still tired. Are you ready to try again?' 
 
It took him a moment but he nodded, flexing his hands once more. 

'Yes,' he said, 'this time I am going to learn to paint.'