To find The Tinkers’ Heart

by Robin Munro

The Rest and Be Thankful will be no more
when the stones of the Cowal are trampled o’er.
Where is the Heart?
Where do I start?

‘Leave us be’ I hear dead travellers say
‘tak your hurry’, better by far
the paths of horses
than of cars and such imposters.

I have no horse.  I had a dog,
borrowed from our origins
to help me know
the slow approach through Glendaruel,

North where three roads used to meet,
a tryst of old Argyll.
Quartz stones set back
from the glaur of grazing, high enough
to look down on smaller Inverary.
Their Loch Fyne view
wide as history, held in the head,
shared on the tongue
of all who travel, join,
take their leave, return or not.

Their metaphor of quartz
into the longing landscape
something of ourselves.
The heart?

I look over sea lochs of memory.
Where do I start?