Neoichiontachd

Who sat on the beach smiling
around the fire?
Playing our tunes madly
as if the sunrise was never coming?
Singing wild and free?
Who sat watching that stranger
throwing pebbles into the sand
drawing lines and proclaiming
“this is the way it’s going to be?”
(with his boundaries and geometry and
negotiation and symmetry)
Who allowed our skeleton to fall broken
down and to take on the flesh of his ideas?
Who allowed that stranger to preach
A utilitarian theology?

Ha! Tarbh-cac.
Neoichiontachd?
Who allowed our fate to be
scattered like fire flies?
Hope fleeting hopelessly
across the barren earth
in the black night’s plea?
Oh. Who allowed that stranger to join
us by the dark moaning sea?
Who allowed that stranger to decree
that it is his way
or the highway?
Who said to that stranger,
“our beaches are washed clean
by rip tides and floods?
So awa ye whig!”
As we scurried to the rigs?
Who?
Who?
Alas, we did …
… n’t.

Neoichiontachd – guiltless