Soon Awa

by Edith Harper

Ah heard fit the doctors hid tae say.
They wir couthy mind, bit couldna jink the trowth.
An ma mind kent ye’d be soon awa,
but ma hert hid nae thocht o sic a thing.

Fan the dowie day cam, jist as wis foretellt,
ma mind cam oot wi a the richt wirds –
‘it wis time’; ‘she wunted awa’,
bit ma hert skirled ‘naw, no yit; dinna gang’.

Efter fower years Ah’m aye hertsair.
Ma mind kens that greetin chynges naethin.
But Ahm wearied wi the muckle weight o dool
at sits in ma hert like a granite stane.

The gap atween hert an mind
streetches as braid as the Nor Sea
an is as grey an cauld an lanely.
It’s a sair trachle tae rive the twa thegither.