Oban, summer night
We were only there for an hour -
no plans to travel on
so strolled around the piers
where a train slept terminally
and the Mull steamer lay docked
as the smooth bay of the night
took its hot, short holiday from light,
remembered stories of the past:
how the young busker stood up to the laird,
how all the seals would bob along the harbour,
and how three well-respected Gaelic poets
had walked into the Royal Bank of Scotland
sozzled, and ordered whisky. (³Sorry, sir,
this is the Royal Bank of Scotland.²)
The same old pubs with open doors and singing
spilt into the square, the quay, while boats
crept out on midnight trips around the bay,
a place to eat fish suppers in the presence
of old and unembittered seagulls. A town to keep
through years, though we wonıt stay away
so long this time, we said, and drove away.
Sally Evans
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