Union of South Africa

Don't usually put up snaps of myself - but was lucky enough to go on the 'Royal Train' as the Borders Railway was officially opened this week ...

... and, here I am, in front of the 'Union of South Africa' as it prepares to pull out of Waverley Station and make its way to Tweedbank :-)

It was a great day - and I'm reminded of Norman MacCaig's famous, train-poem:


Crossing the Border

I sit with my back to the engine, watching
the landscape pouring away out of my eyes.
I think I know where I'm going and have
some choice in the matter.

I think, too, that this was a country
of bog-trotters, moss-troopers,
fired ricks and roof-trees in the black night — glinting
on tossed horns and red blades.
I think of lives
bubbling into the harsh grass.

What difference now?
I sit with my back to the future, watching
time pouring away into the past. I sit, being helplessly
lugged backwards
through the Debatable Lands of history, listening
to the execrations, the scattered cries, the
falling of roof-trees
in the lamentable dark.

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Norman MacCaig (1910 - 1996)

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