But Here We Stand…
Many of us lie and stand, here, in the graveyard at Kilmartin.
The church next to us sits atop an ancient midden heap…. A heap created by ancestors long forgotten, but who prospered in this Glen for generations.
Our story is a different one although we also lie here on the midden heap.
There are seventy nine of us and we were placed here so that family members could identify where their relatives lie.
Once laid in the ground, these wealthy and indeed sometimes noble families, would return occasionally to whisper thoughts into the ears of their ancestors. Their relatives would remain stoically silent.
We slabs…and yes, one stone… tell tales of warrior lords, of farmers, of traders and of ‘men of the cloth’.
They were all human and they led short lives.
We stand here buffeted by the wind, by the rain…..half covered in snow, often swallowed up by the heather and the gorse.
But we stand here.
Beneath us in the valley, our soulmates sit, silently.
Huge mounds they are…..mounds that contained the remains of their creators… mounds that look back up at us, fondly, like caring parents.
We, the seventy nine, look down on them…. We are family…. We are connected….. we tell similar stories.
Today, visitors come and peer at us. They stand in the bright sunshine, the rain, the fog…. And they try to understand the inscriptions carved into us.
They are not family members and cannot discern the stories that we tell.
We are a puzzle to them….. as are the mounds in the glen.
But here we stand.
Traveling in Scotland often evokes emotions in me…. Tales from the past bubble up. Thoughts coalesce.