The Story: Oh My Dear

O my lovely, my Scotland. I ache for your green hills. So far am I from home. The ocean steals my will. Loneliness finds me alone. Can you hear my voice? This is not travel. This is exile that still believes the hills can answer. The ache is specific. It is not for any shore. It is for the green that the speaker can still see with his eyes closed.

Play your pipes for me. Play your pipes for me. Play a love song for me. The pipes are the only language the distance cannot fully drown. Scotland Forever sent the pipes into the street at home. Oh My Dear asks for them from the sea. The two works face each other. One is the gathering. One is the one who has not yet come home to it.

Lonely raindrops fall on the fields, on the fields where fallen brothers lay. Lonely raindrops cry. Pray for me, pray for me. Take me in your arms. Pray for me. The poem does not hide the cost. The fields hold the ones who did not return. The rain is both weather and mourning. The prayer is not for victory. It is for arms, for a place to be held, for the simple mercy of being remembered by the land that made him.

O my dear, dear Scotland. I ache for your embrace. So far am I from home. The ocean mist hides my face. Loneliness finds me alone. Can you hear me calling? Pray for me, pray for me. Keep me in your heart. Pray for me. The last turn is the quietest and the hardest. He does not ask to be famous. He asks not to be forgotten. The mist can hide the face. It cannot hide the call.

Oh My Dear belongs with Scotland Forever. One is the vow kept in the street. One is the vow kept at sea. Look at the light on the water long enough and the lesson is plain. A name lasts when the one who is far away still says it, and the one who is home still answers.

Collection:  Scotland Forever