September Song

 Tomorrow is October - yes, I know - how did that happen? Where did the year go? What about my one precious life, slipping past me day by day at jet speed? It is already dark at 7.30 p.m. and it is just going to get worse, until, if you don't get out of bed of a morning sharp-ish, you'll completely miss any day light - if you can call it daylight, so weak and watery is it in these far northern November latitudes.

So, while it is still September, we'll celebrate with a bit of elegiac misery.

The Earl's Palace, Kirkwall, was built around 1606 by Patrick, Earl of Orkney, cousin of James VI. He was a bad bastard, known as ‘Black Patie’, and ruled the Northern Isles from 1592. Earl Patrick's financial corruption, his brutality and torture of the local population led to him being summoned before the Privy Council in 1609, and then imprisoned in Edinburgh Castle. Whilst imprisoned, he sent his bastard son Robert Stewart to raise a rebellion in Orkney. Robert seized the Palace of Birsay with thirty companions in May 1614, then occupied the Earl's Palace and St Magnus' Cathedral in Kirkwall. 700 rebels joined Robert, claiming to restore royal justice in Orkney during the Black Patie's absence. The Earl of Caithness defeated Robert at the end of September, after a five-week siege of the Earl's Palace, battering the Palace with 140 cannon shots; he said the Palace was so strong that some of his cannonballs had "brokkin lyk goulfe balls upoune the castelle and clovin in twa halffis". Twelve of Robert's men were hanged at the castle gate. Black Patie was executed for treason in 1615. His Palace was built by slave labour. Here it is, brooding over Kirkwall.

September, Kirkwall

Slow, sad September drapes the town,

With mist that holds the rooftops down.

The black hulk of the Earl’s domain

Lurks in the dusk like anchored pain.

No laughter spills from stone or stair,

Just silence thick in Orkney air.

The palace dreams of fire and feast,

Wearing the twilight like a beast.

Thin arms lifted, not in praise - just habit.

The skyline bruises into evening tones,

No wind, no birds,

just the hush of ending.

Bird huddles close, all daylight shed,

A crown of leaves above her head.

The sun slips low, a molten thread, 

unspooling gold where day has fled. 

Blooms still hold a blush of flame,

Too bright for dusk, too soft to name.

 Petals curling as shadows grow,

A slow retreat, a final show.

Yet in the dim, they seem to gleam—

Embers flickering in a dream.

Leaning against the weathered stone,

They bloomed too late, too far alone.

The sea is iron. The wind is keen.