Who mourns you, monument to peace?
You maintained generosity,
old flower, gifted by the dead,
grown for those who mourn upon stones.
Your bouquets are gone, decayed too,
and your bark scabs are hanging on.
Who mourns you now, you white-boned ghost?
Bleached, near mere marrow, what grieves you?
May your winding limbs give shelter
from the tempest of the torn mind.
You need not answer my questions;
sit with me in living silence,
you resurrection of our departed.
Blair Center
Blair
Center is a writer and student from Inverurie in the North-East of Scotland.
Center has had poetry published by The Basilisk Tree, Boats Against the
Current, Dreich, The Hyacinth Review, and Leopard Arts. In 2021, his poem,
'Hosie's Sickness' received Highly Commended in the open poetry category of the
Buchan Heritage Society's Doric Writing Competition; in 2023, two of his poems,
'The Stanners' and 'Birthday Roses', attained third place. Whether in English,
Scots, or his local tongue, Doric, Center finds that themes of nature, memory,
identity, and place particularly and consistently motivate his work.
