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Farewell to Islay

Snowflakes on your long blonde hair
we slipped and slid over icy ruts,
by the curve of soot stained tenements
long swept from Eldon street.
The Kelvin cut through floes of ice
by the back of the bustling Doublet.
Students of liquor spilled out laughing
in front of us into the snow.

A cold wind swirled through Maryhill
to the doors of the Q M Halls,
where I last heard your voice;
and last looked into your eyes.
Before you left for Oban
from a Glasgow that’s almost gone.

Pale blue ink on pale blue lines
reminds me of your letters still;
reminds me of a teenage girl
who crossed the sea from Islay.
You were tremulous shyness,
and a tender lilting song,
and I was lost in all that you were.
Your beauty was the least of it.

And yet, I recklessly figured
that a bit part
was somehow good enough for you...

What is it that really matters here?
I might have asked myself.
But all of my so called intellect
was aloft, on blind wings
or juggling mindlessly
on lower tracks I couldn’t jump
and in the end I let it all go;
no explanation why,
no farewell to Islay,
silently,
as if you’d never written,
as if we’d never been
except for a wintry absence
of your laughter by the Kelvin;
pale blue eyes through flakes of snow.

poem by Jim Hogg
Added by Poetry Lover
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