A' Dol Dhachaigh / Going Home
This poem for Remembrance Day is not so much about war but about its aftermath. It was written by Iain Crichton Smith, a poet born and brought up on the same island in the Hebrides that I am from. Smith wrote in both Gaelic and English, this poem was originally written in Gaelic and you can hear a recording of the poet reading it here.
A' Dol Dhachaigh / Going Home
Tomorrow I shall go home to my island
trying to put a world into forgetfulness.
I will lift a fistful of its earth in my hands
or I will sit on a hillock of the mind
watching "the shepherd at his sheep".
There will arise (I presume) a thrush.
A dawn or two will break.
There will be a boat lying in the glitter
of the western sun: and water running
through the world of smilies of my intelligence.
But I will be thinking (in spite of that)
of the great fire at the back of our thoughts,
Nagasaki and Hiroshima,
and I will hear in a room by myself
a ghost or two ceaselessly moving,
the ghost of each error, the ghost of each guilt,
the ghost of each time I walked past
a wounded man on a stony road,
the ghost of nothing scrutinising
my dumb room with distant face,
till the island becomes an ark
rising and falling on a great sea
and I not knowing whether the dove will return
and men talking and talking to each other
and the rainbow of forgiveness in their tears.
Iain Crichton Smith
1928 - 1998
I once borrowed several lines of this poem for a fic ( Recant) about Horatio trying to come to terms with Archie's death. At the time I felt a bit guilty about trivialising a really thought provoking and moving piece of writing, but I suppose that's what it's about, learning to live with the aftermath of war and the guilt and absence it leaves with the living.
A' Dol Dhachaigh / Going Home
Tomorrow I shall go home to my island
trying to put a world into forgetfulness.
I will lift a fistful of its earth in my hands
or I will sit on a hillock of the mind
watching "the shepherd at his sheep".
There will arise (I presume) a thrush.
A dawn or two will break.
There will be a boat lying in the glitter
of the western sun: and water running
through the world of smilies of my intelligence.
But I will be thinking (in spite of that)
of the great fire at the back of our thoughts,
Nagasaki and Hiroshima,
and I will hear in a room by myself
a ghost or two ceaselessly moving,
the ghost of each error, the ghost of each guilt,
the ghost of each time I walked past
a wounded man on a stony road,
the ghost of nothing scrutinising
my dumb room with distant face,
till the island becomes an ark
rising and falling on a great sea
and I not knowing whether the dove will return
and men talking and talking to each other
and the rainbow of forgiveness in their tears.
Iain Crichton Smith
1928 - 1998
I once borrowed several lines of this poem for a fic ( Recant) about Horatio trying to come to terms with Archie's death. At the time I felt a bit guilty about trivialising a really thought provoking and moving piece of writing, but I suppose that's what it's about, learning to live with the aftermath of war and the guilt and absence it leaves with the living.