"Heck, Kelpies eat people. They may not play with their food as creatively as the Each Uisge, but dead is dead.”
― E.J. Stevens
Do you feel safe?
In the valley,
Near the lakes and rivers
And rocky greens
You have walked since you were new.
Do you remember?
Young, and laughing with your brother,
Near the home,
Blue eyes bright with sky-blue innocence
And summer freckling warm
Across your face.
You, with coltish limbs
And gangling adolescence,
Between the worlds
Of childhood and of age.
Too wise to listen to your mother’s
Nagging wishes, and her superstitious
Warnings.
Too young to join the men, with whiskey’d breath,
As they scoff and spit at a maiden’s worry,
But do not meet your eyes,
Until the drink has mellowed down
To soft whispers
Half spoken memories
And doubt.
You have joined those men now.
Stiff limbed, and age-worn,
With glints of hard-won steel,
Burning with the knowing
In your eyes.
Where is that brother?
With hair that flickered like a flame
Against your russet,
Boring
Brown.
Young enough still that
The scent of milk had not yet
Faded from round limbs.
Young enough not to know
The fear your mother whispered in your ears.
It took me three days.
Three days of flickering in the corners
Of his vision,
Prancing, playful, hooves flashing
In the dim sunlight
That slithered through
The mist.
Every time, your eyes drifted,
Turned towards the far horizon,
With dreams of how you would make your fresh
Escape. A big city. Proud career.
Not stuck in your father’s, father’s, father’s home,
A cottage underneath
The shadow of the mountains
That I chose to roam.
You should have watched more closely.
But, if you had,
I would not have fed so well.
Come now,
Do not scream,
The way you did before the grey
Had dusted moonlight up and down your brow.
I ran, you chased,
Laughter catching on the wind,
Distorted through my horse’s throat,
The child tangled
In my tricky mane.
Do not feel guilt that you could not catch me.
My kind so rarely relinquish their prey.
Had you been faster,
Struggled more,
I still would not have let
The young thing go.
Come, old man,
The years sit heavy on you,
And the waters of my home,
Are dark and cool.
Come, old man,
And let the years spill from you,
Draining red beneath the sky.
Come, old man.
Don’t you hear your brother crying?
Don’t you see him soft and pale?
Don’t you hear your mother’s wail,
The day that you came home alone?
Come, old man.
Into the depths,
Where I can claim you.
Where your little brother,
Waits,
To say
Hello.
Insp. Scottish myths of water-horses
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