Death of a Scottish Makar!

On the 19 August this year Edwin Morgan (1920-2010) one of Scotland's greatest poets died. A sad day for Scottish culture.

As a young student in the 1970s I used to go to the Third Eye Centre in Glasgow and listen to poetry recitals. I especially liked the poetry of Edwin Morgan. So much so that in my last year at Uni my dissertation was on his Glasgow poetry. Not only did I get to read his poetry I met the man himself, spent a day with him in his flat and taped an interview with him for my thesis. Then, as it was close to Christmas he gave me a number of his books and signed them for me. He will be missed ....

Absence by Edwin Morgan

My shadow --
I woke to a wind swirling the curtains light and dark
and the birds twittering on the roofs, I lay cold
in the early light in my room high over London.
What fear was it that made the wind sound like a fire
so that I got up and looked out half-asleep
at the calm rows of street-lights fading far below?
Without fire
Only the wind blew.
But in the dream I woke from, you
came running through the traffic, tugging me, clinging
to my elbow, your eyes spoke
what I could not grasp --
Nothing, if you were here!

The wind of the early quiet
merges slowly now with a thousand rolling wheels.
The lights are out, the air is loud.
It is an ordinary January day.
My shadow, do you hear the streets?
Are you at my heels? Are you here?
And I throw back the sheets.