The days pick me up and carry me off

Running rest-day, and the highly changeable weather in Edinburgh today has me thinking of wilder places ...

... so - here's another of my all-time favourite Norman MacCaig poems:


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.


It's taken from the pictured 2010 collection, although was written in 1984.

As with most of MacCaig's poetry, I'm endlessly amazed at how much he manages to convey in such a very few lines ...

... just so wonderfully evocative and thoughtful.