Wednesday 26 January 2011

A Poem

When rifling through a box of old cards this morning ,I came across a poem I wrote in June, 2009. Now I'm not one for writing poetry but the event referred to in this poem affected me profoundly and I was literally compelled to write something about it. I had to put my thoughts on paper..if only to try and understand in some way what had happened.

Basically, on a beautiful summer's evening in June, 2009 a young biker died when his bike collided with a car here in Braes on Skye. This young man was 23 and, although I did not know him personally, I remember him when he was a school boy getting on the school bus that I often travelled on too. In later years, I often saw him hanging about with other bikers in the Square in Portree. He was handsome, friendly, always smiling.. in the prime of his life. 

My eldest daughter, Natalie, phoned me and told me that he had been killed and to go look at all the messages already posted on his Bebo page. I just could not process it...that this beautiful summer's evening had been this boy's last and his friends were now expressing and sharing their sense of shock and sadness at his loss in the most immediate and accessible way they knew.

Anyway... here is the poem which I had just scribbled down on a bit of paper...at least by typing it here I can acutally save it somewhere relatively safe.

Last Active

'Last active' 12hrs
Online status given damning power
As speeding death overtook at Braes
RIPs like the blood slick seep down his page.
Where friends pour out youth's soft pain
And he 'last active' forever will remain.




4 comments:

  1. It's sad when something like that happens Linda.
    Were myou watching Breakfast this morning? They were talking about the Costa book awards and that this year a book of poetry has won an award - the woman who wrote the poems said that sometimes things in life need a poem and only that will do it justice - birth, death, whatever. She'd never really considered herself a poet i don't think till she looke thru stuff she'd done. Didn't get to see it all what with coming ang going but it was interesting

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  2. Didn't see the programme but read about it on a book website I have in my favourites. As I say if I'm going to write something it is more likely to be a blog or an account of how I feel about something or my opinion on something but for some reason...I don't know why...when I saw the messages on bebo...these thoughts just came to me in poem form.

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  3. that was such a tragedy Linda and your poem really impressed me :)

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