I cannae be afraid o' the written werd.

Embra.

The first thing anyone needs to do after they’ve experienced love at first sight is to learn the name of their new beloved.

Embra.

*

I say goodbye to Edinburgh as a lover. I use a special name for it. I have shared a bed with this city. I have made a home of it. Each day, I breathe in its aromas as I have done with many a past romance, tracing its hard lines and fine curves with my hands. I hear the city’s heartbeat and I walk hard to it. My feet are quick with my lover’s pace. A white petal falls from a tree in George Square, falls into my hair, and I promise I will return.

*

Embra. One hundred promises to you, and all the same. I will not forget. I will not. I carved my initials into your crags. Into the King’s Seat. I will return and my tongue will come alive again. You gave me the beginnings of my novel. You spit fuel into my flame, that waning wick that I’d left untended for too long out of comfort and forgetfulness. Your swirling, ever-shifting clouds spoke to my very nature and you reminded me


I CANNOT GET TOO COMFORTABLE.


*

I left my heart with you, Embra. It is safely buried on the top of a hill, where the wind and the rising sun can feed it. Under a very particular Gorse bush, it lies waiting. Within the bush, your stonechats and warblers make their nests and keep guard. The Gorse itself can protect my fervent heart, however; it is a fire-climax plant after all. Its seed pods are opened by the forked tongues of fire. It can burst into flames and my heart will remain intact. For my heart and the Gorse bush do share some common ancestry. Both can thrive in poor growing conditions – rocky soil, drought, the ledge of a cliff. And both require careful handling. For, despite the fragrant yellow flowers that attract honeybees and wanderers, one mustn’t forget the long spines growing just beneath. The birds that live within the dense, thorny covering never forget. This is why, Embra, your stonechats and warblers are worthy of guarding my hot heart. There are people, less knowledgeable in these matters, that dare to refer to the Gorse as a weed, invasive and aggressive. Yes, it is fact that the Gorse proves quite difficult to eradicate and it is for this very reason that I have buried my heart in the soil just beneath one. The Gorse’s roots will wrap ‘round and hold tight, until the day I return to find it.

*

With a wretched hangover I sit in the back row of this Aer Lingus flight that will take me first to Dublin, then Boston. Nothing about this situation seems right. O Embra, I feel sick. A force such that I’ve never known violently bangs against the inner walls of my chest. Wait. I thrust my forehead against this tiny plastic window and I peer down in disbelief. Embra, through the raindrops that slide down over this window, you grow smaller and smaller still. Wait. Your green, your nation are fast disappearing. I am flying out of reach. But wait! I want to shout. My brow is soaked with sweat. Wait! wait! Up, up, up I go, (wait!) away I go, (no!) away I go, into those swirling clouds from which I came less than six months ago. I must let go of you, Embra, and I know you wish it for me. But it is so hard right now, when it is still so early in the morning and when the taste of alcohol is still so strong on my tongue. You introduced me to new friends and it is so hard right now, with their voices ringing loud and clear between my ears. Goodbye, goodbye. I don’t wish to say it but with my lips I make the motions. My forehead throbs, sends pangs of longing up and down my limbs. My stomach hates me. I wish I could lie in your grass, Embra, so that your crisp air could cleanse me and your ground could absorb my pain. But I am on a plane headed for Dublin, then Boston. I am in this giant metal tube and there is no turning back. I cry, and to no avail.

*

Embra – enough with the sorrows. I love you dearly and it is for this reason that I’ve written to you. I love you so dearly because it was you that awakened the poet-wanderer inside of me. She was fast asleep, tucked away in a tower somewhere and you led me right to her. You showed me how to slay the dragons. You whispered the fairies’ secrets into my ears. You taught me that the witch guarding the tower is not to be killed but rather followed. She was the only one who would lead me to the right room. And in the realest sense, you gave me the beginnings of my novel. You gave me Ken Mair, and Pony Lawrence, and Nina Clara, and Edie. You rekindled my passion for learning and literature. You demonstrated each and every day that there will always be two sides to the same coin at the same time, for there always has. You reminded me of the fire and air that make up my spirit; the wild ocean spinning my emotions. I am an archer with wings and I cannot, will not stop my gallop. I will continue on my adventure. I promise to be brave. I promise to always listen to the air. I promise to return.

With tears in my eyes but a grin on my face, I sing:

O, all the money that e’er I had,
I spent it in good company.
And all the harm that I’ve ever done,
alas it was to none but me.
And all I've done for want of wit
to mem’ry now I can’t recall;
So fill to me the parting glass,
Goodnight and joy be to you all.

So fill to me the parting glass
And drink a health whate’er befalls
And gently rise and softly call
Goodnight and joy be to you all

O, all the comrades e’er I had,
They're sorry for my going away.
And all the sweethearts e’er I had,
They'd wished me one more day to stay.
But since it fell unto my lot,
That I should rise and you should not,
I gently rise and softly call,
Goodnight and joy be to you all

So fill to me the parting glass
And drink a health whate’er befalls
And gently rise and softly call
Goodnight and joy be to you all.


...yea, it's an Irish song, but ye ken wha I mean.