{"id":6204,"date":"2017-12-19T12:00:52","date_gmt":"2017-12-19T12:00:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sceptical.scot\/staging\/?p=6204"},"modified":"2025-12-26T23:25:54","modified_gmt":"2025-12-26T23:25:54","slug":"a-poem-for-christmas","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sceptical.scot\/staging\/2017\/12\/a-poem-for-christmas\/","title":{"rendered":"A poem for Christmas"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Mountain, water, love. A reminder of what endures, especially (though not exclusively) for those of us who feel years speeding, days shortening, shadows lengthening, and names slipping elusively out of reach<\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This year\u2019s Sceptical Scot poem for Christmas \u2013 so soon since the last one \u2013 is a poignantly, tenderly beautiful poem by Christine de Luca<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n

What\u2019s in a name?<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

If and when I have mislaid my name<\/p>\n\n\n\n

and stare at you disconcertingly<\/p>\n\n\n\n

 <\/p>\n\n\n\n

let me spend a day parked by Suilven,<\/p>\n\n\n\n

perplexed by broken water. Turn<\/p>\n\n\n\n

 <\/p>\n\n\n\n

my calendar to the mountain\u2019s season,<\/p>\n\n\n\n

and set my watch by shadows on the loch.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

 <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Forgive me if I lose the reason that we came<\/p>\n\n\n\n

or my gaze clouds in a cod-fish kind of way<\/p>\n\n\n\n

 <\/p>\n\n\n\n

or if the name I chose for you eludes me<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I\u2019ll still sense mountain, water, love.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

 <\/p>\n\n\n\n

From Dat Trickster Sun<\/a>, a collection of poems by Christine de Luca, Makar of Edinburgh 2014-17. Available from Mariscat Press<\/a> and published here with kind permission of the author.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Featured image, The Far Lands by John McSporran<\/a>, taken at sunset from the top of Suilven, Creative Commons CC By 2.0<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This year\u2019s Sceptical Scot poem for Christmas \u2013 so soon since the last one \u2013 is a poignantly, tenderly beautiful poem by Christine de Luca.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":11,"featured_media":6207,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[104,55],"class_list":["post-6204","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-culture","tag-christine-de-luca","tag-poetry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sceptical.scot\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6204","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sceptical.scot\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sceptical.scot\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sceptical.scot\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/11"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sceptical.scot\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6204"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/sceptical.scot\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6204\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":17740,"href":"https:\/\/sceptical.scot\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6204\/revisions\/17740"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sceptical.scot\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6207"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sceptical.scot\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6204"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sceptical.scot\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6204"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sceptical.scot\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6204"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}