Peatsmoke (St. Margaret’s Hope)

 

When you smell the peat, it could be any time -

The trackless ages of prehistory;

The early Christian days, when Patrick went

From slavery to sainthood in a blink;

 

You could be sitting round the gusting fire

With William Wallace or with Finn McCool,

Or scenting in the distance, rapturously,

The welcome hearth of Yeats, of Rabbie Burns;

 

In fact, it might even be today,

For all the difference in that noble smell;

You might have driven a long, weary way

Through the prosaic present, to arrive

 

Where burning moss carries the old soul back

To wallow in its ageless ancestry.