The Sound of Pipes
When first I heard the skirl of pipes
wafting from the cobbled stones
and winding down a narrow Dundee street
that first Christmas morning after war
I thought the earth had opened to release
the cries of anguish buried
and of joy confined,
the wail of tumult now set free
by slaughtered conflict
and the birth of hope,
but I was wrong.
Now
after a life secure from no man's land
but bordering the burned and bloody fields
of unremitting world war,
while the sound of pipes still call my heart
to heights of wild
and breathless peace,
and my blood quickens for the promised land,
I hear sadness in the call
mourning the hard harvest of Eden's fields
cobbled by cold
and grisly stones,
headstones marking paradise lost .
When first I heard the skirl of pipes
wafting from the cobbled stones
and winding down a narrow Dundee street
that first Christmas morning after war
I thought the earth had opened to release
the cries of anguish buried
and of joy confined,
the wail of tumult now set free
by slaughtered conflict
and the birth of hope,
but I was wrong.
Now
after a life secure from no man's land
but bordering the burned and bloody fields
of unremitting world war,
while the sound of pipes still call my heart
to heights of wild
and breathless peace,
and my blood quickens for the promised land,
I hear sadness in the call
mourning the hard harvest of Eden's fields
cobbled by cold
and grisly stones,
headstones marking paradise lost .