'Aunt Julia' by Norman MacCaig
Aunt Julia spoke Gaelic
very loud and very fast.
I could not answer her —
I could not understand her.
5 She wore men's boots
when she wore any.
— I can see her strong foot,
stained with peat,
paddling with the treadle of the spinningwheel
10 while her right hand drew yarn
marvellously out of the air.
Hers was the only house
where I've lain at night
in the absolute darkness
15 of a box bed, listening to
crickets being friendly.
She was buckets
and water flouncing into them.
She was winds pouring wetly
20 round house-ends.
She was brown eggs, black skirts
and a keeper of threepennybits
in a teapot.
Aunt Julia spoke Gaelic
25 very loud and very fast.
By the time I had learned
a little, she lay
silenced in the absolute black
of a sandy grave
30 at Luskentyre. But I hear her still,
welcoming me
with a seagull's voice
across a hundred yards
of peatscrapes and lazybeds
and getting angry, getting angry
35 with so many questions
unanswered.
Norman MacCaig
