The Ghost of Tiree
Whilst straining my eyes in the wind of the noon,
Merely being stung by the spray of the sea,
Just a-roaming, just a-walking in the glens beyond Balephetrish Bay.
Aye it was an eerie day, the silence in the music was so so deafening.
But my ear did perk at the oddity of its quarry.
‘Cause guzzling through the glen on its way out to sea,
I caught the sound of a lone piper.
First I heard the symphony of the wind and sea,
Accompanied by creation’s vigour and zeal.
Then the soloist pumped out a note and the sound of the pipes swirled through the air.
The wind and the wind twirled down the glen and danced their way out to sea.
And I was left again stranded in creation’s symphony.
But aye this wilnae be a surprise to some. Och no. There are others well acquainted with the ghost of Tiree.
He was a wild lad, adventurous you could say. Loved his pipes and loved his dog and cared for little else.
In the caves at Kenavara there is a blowhole. On a windy day it spews its spray high into the air. But at low tide on a calm sea, it is still enough for a wild lad, his dog and his pipes to slip down into the depths of the earth.
And that, my friends, is exactly what the lad did. He struck up a tune from the belly of the earth, that rumbled the rocks and awoke those that abode there.
With a gait in his step, a sway in his kilt, his pipes ablaze and his dog at his side, he embarked on the tunnel ahead.
They heard him in Heylipol as he strolled the streets of Sheol and in Crosspol the pipes floated aloft from the fields. But it was Kirkapol where the locals heard another tune.
First there was the pipe sound wafting from the ground. Then there was a bark, a scream and a yelp. And the pipes fell silent. It was the kind of silence that screams to be heard. But no one heard it, ’cause the wild lad was no more.
But late that day in the monolithic bay of Milton the masterless mutt appeared. Dead but alive, eyes wide open and stunned, he crawled from the belly of the earth. He lay there on the grass as the sun was going down and closed his eyes. As he wafted away to the place where the music went, he never heard the sound of the pipes.
His master was gone and he was half eaten, bone and gristle, he never again opened his eyes.
So in the eeriness of my afternoon, the wind and the wind piped through the glen, whilst in the belly of the earth the ghost of Tiree piped by one more time.
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The Ghost of Tiree is featured in my book titled Ta!. Ta! can be purchased at late for supper for €13.45
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