Only Scotland can make a sky this; liquid, moving and pulsing with color--purple fading to blazing orange.  A forest looms in the back, spilling out into the vast rolling fields.  The green has faded grayer in the light, but still, seems so lush.  One tall man-made creation breaks the landscape, jutting high into the horizon, crowned like an ancient queen; a proud tower.  The master masons chose sandstone to make their castle, and as a result, the blood-red sides of the ruin are purpled.  Remainders of the rest of the castle seem to have fallen in on itself, an entire back wall gone, and bricks leave a crooked reminder of Time and war.  Tall grasses surround the moat, the water reflecting the setting sun; it seems so peaceful.

". . . so strong a castle that it feared no siege.... in shape it was like a shield for it has but three sides round it, with a tower at each corner....And I think that you will never see a more finely situated castle, for on one side can be seen the Irish Sea, towards the west and to the north the fair moorland, surrounded by an arm of the sea, so that no creature born can approach it on two sides without putting himself in danger of the sea. On the south side it is not easy, for there are many places difficult to get through because of woods and marshes and ditches hollowed out by the sea where it meets the river."

Poems on Castle Caerlaverock--Dumfrieshire, Scotland Capturing A Castle Certainly no Pulitzer Prize shot; I aimed, I clicked, I moved on. There was no time to think. Complete shock and amazment flowed through me as I stumbled  Over uneven pavement, and  Always, the castle loomed above. It was like another presence, Watching ruefully as tourists ooh’d and aah’d their way through. And I was as bad as all of them.           Caerlaverock Castle: 1278 Maxwell’s hands slid along the smooth red stone, Calloused against the sandy surface. His eyes, cloudy like a smith’s water basin, Traced the lines of the high crowned tower, The only gentle feature in a weather beaten face. “Mine,” he whispered gruffly. The wind howled in protest. Beyond the red tower, the lazy grasses grew high In a few weeks’ peace. The dirty mat belched. A lark alighted, soundless, on the utmost window. Maxwell’s land swelled with protection, A ruddy ragged mother poised to strike. His fortress alone blemished the rolling waves Of green grass and ancient trees-- His creation, rising out of nothing, The straight hewn sandstone,  Red in the sun, spoke of blood to come. Strong.  Unmoving.  Caerlaverock. “Mine,” whispered Maxwell, softly. Breeze blew back his black beard, “Mine,” said the wind.     Click   My camera captured a castle inside of it. Click. The monolith, the ruin, the  beauty takes my breath with it  and-- Click. It’s mine; that day, bottled up and processed-- Click. When the pictures come back I’ll sigh--disappointed--  nothing like the real thing. Click.  I attempt to ignore the   Click. And line up the grey sky, green grass, red tower-- Click. Before it’s all gone to Click.

Gone To Ruin Skeletal remains are put on display, roped around with a manicured lawn,   and gift shop--a bonny view for all. The most elegant tower, in the far back right, is still and silent, holding her own--   the back wall leaves a bitter draft. Builders once coursed the halls like blood though great cavernous veins,    living and dying, coming and going. The moat runs clear and clean where once such a stench rose, it turned away   the stealtiest of warriors. Smooth red sides erode with the years, strain  against the wind--double over with dust,     struggling to keep standing. Vast walls are now chipped and scarred with initials.  “Murphy was here” and   “Alexander 1891” and more besides. Memories are weakened as wind plays across the field and the tower shudders against   nature’s driving rain.     The Ruin An archaeologist will come one day, Bent on aspirations of fame,  to claim Caerlaverock. Time will have forgotten the Breaths of those who walked before;  The wind will have succeeded  In her tyrannous destruction. The man of science will set up his precise instruments to measure,  and survey, to dig and to uproot. He will find red sandstone hewn by human hands and  vestiges of foundation, buried  deep in the earth. Proudly, he’ll detail the architechture of a vastly ancient race;  The barbarians knew a thing or  two about fortification, he’ll say. And no one will argue, because the voices will have long died out.

Wet Paint
In the paintings my genes have inherited there
 are waves, and rooms, and cliffsides;
Thick oil paint, scraped and grated, grainy,
 colors of unearthly hue and perspective.
Great-grandfather Dewey Albinson, a Swede,
 a painter who hit his wife and yelled;
Died from lead poisoning in his veins--
 there are more paintings than nice things to say.
His portrait, in misty charcoal, hangs in my hall,
 drawn by his mistress who wasn’t his wife;
Dad says that’s why grandma hates men.

 But there’s something else in the wrinkled
canvases above the grand piano in the livingroom--
 Don Quixote, over and over, tall and stick-like,
With a round head, mounting his horse--
 Always Quixote, always before rambling mountains
 Romantic and hopeless, orange
Bleeding into red.  “It was his theme,” a
critic might say.  “Later in life.”
 I think, later in life, his theme was dying.
 I can’t help but pity the man, the artist, the father
and patriarch of my family. In a way.
 He was Don Quixote.
 

In The Light Of Stars

I stepped out into the light of stars
above a canopy of branches
 peeking between leaves--like little
cold-eyed spies.

The girl beside me clasped my hands, her
fingers warm between
 my fingers cold.
She asked me what the stars were
 and why they looked down upon us.

My voice caught.  Her dark eyes gazed
 up at the glittering heavens,
reflecting there as though she had never
seen them.
 The stars.  Her friends.

I once belived them to be
 Elven kingoms up in the atmosphere;
Magic close enough to see, yet too far away to touch.
Science seemed a dull answer;
I feared to break her heart as
mine had once when
 someone dared to tell me
The truth.