Seven Questions

After I walked Edinburgh’s seven hills with Roman Scotland in mind, I wrote the question-and-answer poems below, and read them at Croy on World Heritage Day.

Seven Questions


What is seven?

seas and sleepers
sorrows and sisters

brides and brothers
magnificent samurai

pillars of wisdom
and ages of man

the days of creation’s
labour and leisure

godly virtues
and deadly sins

the lost wonders
of the ancient world

of hills you need for a city
the requisite number

•

What are Edinburgh’s seven hills?

a hinterland
of unreal estate

urban meadows
and untended suburbs

a thronged trig-point
and hillside sun trap

a library of barkbooks
composed by lovers

a cruising spot
and an unfenced drop

vantage points
and a field of monuments

a shallow burn
and a shady grove

*

What is a wall?

a unilateral declaration
of binary division

a line drawn in the sand
and fortified

a lasting reminder
that we’re not all in this together

official suspicion
and informal resentment

a register
of comings and goings

a project to keep your own
onside and occupied

an immutable frontier
time can’t help sniggering at

*

Who are the Romans?

the wolf-twins
and Trojan Aeneas

Etruscan kings
and republican consuls

razers of Cathage
and lovers of Egypt

translating Greek
and crossing the Rubicon

emperors long-lived
or four to the year

bearers of laurels
and builders of frontiers

instigators and keepers
of mare nostrum and pax Romana

*

What is a barbarian?

One who reckons wealth in cattle
and honour in raiding

prefers fighting his neighbour
to uniting with him

offers tribute to Rome
only when pushed

remembers enough not to need
to write anything down

has stone calendars
and bone implements

builds brochs and duns
in lochs and glens

makes the most
of forests and mosses

*

What lies beyond the Antonine Wall?

among the bays are
Rerigonium Vindogara and Volsas

among the estuaries are
Tavae Tvesis and Varar

among the headlands are
Taezalorum Verubium and Virvedrum

among the river-mouths are
Devae Caelis and Nabari

among the inland places are
Bannatia Tamia and Orrea

among the tribes are
Vacomagi Caledonii and Carnonagae

among the islands are
Sketis Dumna and Orcades

*

What is Roman Edinburgh?

Hume’s simple Roman tomb
in Calton Burial Ground

the unbound fasces
of the parliament

the Christians as those of the Roman church
on the pediment of St Patrick’s

Finlay’s baskets of olives and grapes
on the south-facing terrace of Hunter Square

Stoddart’s be-togaed Hume
on his pedestal at the law courts

the museum altars
to Mercury and Fortuna

the Cramond lioness
exhumed from the silt

***

Ken Cockburn
Shadows of our Ancestors
World Heritage Day 2012