POEMS
MR . ALLEN
From Dreghorn to the Royal and Antient Borough
Of Irvine, Mr. Allen walked my road,
I waited for him while the amber bees
Danced in the window up and down the sunlight,
Old friezecoat teacher with his violin
Under his arm, which in his mind he played;
His red Scots Guard's moustaches turning white,
He played back all his life those seven miles:
His ear was antiquarian, yet he heard
All the fledglings fumbling in the hedgerows
Whose song I knew; and all ephemeras too.
Mr. Allen stamped into the schoolroom
From Tierra del Fuego, worlds away;
In vain seals barked in his unpublished concert–
It
was before those mimes, the Elder Persons
Took on their
trag~c,
minatory role
II
Sad! to his numbered years the avid summer
Firing the hedgerows, sounded Omen! Omen!
But cool and sweet I had the room arr.anged:
Dark red chrysanthemums, the dead, the dead,
Like the flare .above the steelworks in Kilwinning,
Like the ashes in the pipe which he put down,
He put the bow down too: I thought: "Mr. Allen, Mr. Allen,
If
it's true we'll never play again together:
It's true your only heaven is in my mind!–
Even your cousin ghosts by now have left you
