the honey of memory

After such a marvelous few days up in Knoydart, it just has to be some Norman MacCaig for today - here's a favourite, as taken from the pictured 2010 collection:


Between mountain and sea

Honey and salt - land smell and sea smell,
as in the long ago, as in forever.

The days pick me up and carry me off,
half-child, half prisoner,

on their journey that I'll share
for a while.

They wound me and they bless me
with strange gifts:

the salt of absence,
the honey of memory.

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Norman MacCaig (1910 - 1996)

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