My First Published Poem

Arthur's Seat, Edinburgh

"Remembering Arthur's Seat, Edinburgh" 
was first published in The Chariton Review
at Truman State University
in the Spring 1979 issue.

Remembering Arthur's Seat, Edinburgh

James Hart

We walked up slowly, crunching dead lava

and dried sheep dung.  I remember how

your eyes erupted when I said I'd go.

The first trip together, going places

both imagined and real; we climbed well.

That steep ziggarut of the plain

now one more tower among monuments

and spires, after a city was erected

and crowded it small.  Sandwiched

between sky and plateau, we pointed north

and spoke of highlands and clans.  The feud

of their bagpipes echoed off grey hills

in the mind where clouds, wet wool, rolled

over that seat of legendary realm.  Remember

morning and breakfast still breathing warm night

while the landlady babbled over her tea,

telling us how Arthur had rebuked Guinevere,

how your eyes yearned chivalry, and her back

tired of making travelers' beds.  The table cloth

stained, we didn't speak but nodded yes,

two crows eyeing the dead feast in pools of grease:

blood sausage, sterile eggs, toast and black tea.

Rain outside streaked grey walls and dun stones.

I didn't tell you I wished we were south

tasting pomegranates where light stabs eyes.

Back home on old country roads, the blackberries

linger in season.  Remembering, drifting things,

your delight in wrestling dreams, the Stone of Scone,

and fingers hung deep in the thorns with dust,

I make a game of spitting seeds beyond the gravel.

If you had choked on one, you would be here

now, lifting the veil from lust in the lava, or lying

on cinders where priests once raised arms to the sun.