A Love Letter to Edinburgh

This month we’re celebrating Edinburgh as the location of the 44 Scotland Street series with a brand-new poem from Alexander McCall Smith and a lovely giveaway.

Sometimes, in the fulness off summer,
Scotland may forget its geographical position,
May fail to recall the latitudes
That are its boundaries, that define
Where the Borders start and where
Shetland and its most northerly lighthouse
Meet a sea in which there is no further
Evidence of land, and over which
That lighthouse sends a glimmer,
A pinprick of light in a night
That in winter lasts a very long time.

In such conditions of summer optimism,
Edinburgh, persuading itself of the possibilities
Of an external life, populates its pavements
With crowds and performers and cafes,
While, in democratic profusion, flags
And banners of all kind indiscriminately
Advertise the spirit of festival,
Allude to art and to all the themes
That art embraces; and remind us
That this, after all, is the city of Ramsay,
Of the wigmaker-poet who collected
All those songs and stories of place;
Of Robert Ferguson, who briefly
Caught the rhythm of a language
Before another arrived from Ayrshire
To entertain the well-to-do here
With the poetry of those who had
So very much less than they had,
But who still were generous and unbowed;
While philosophers, dreamers each
Of another way at looking at the world,
Blew away the cobwebs that survive
Only in darkness and in superstition;
All this diminishes, of course, as years intervene,
But descend to the Cowgate,
By those stone steps worn down
By generations of feet and listen
To the heartbeat of a city
That still wants so keenly to say
Something to the world;
That would still wish
To make the general statement,
And embrace the human and humane;
It has not departed, that spirit
That lies so light on this city,
Its touch a gentle one, barely felt,
Its voice a whisper, but as persistent
As an echo that determines not to fade.

Alexander McCall Smith