Best Clans Poems
Clans, Ilks and Tartans
Woven into threads of red and black,
Girded by grids of white,
Distant plaintive bagpipe memories
Of sunset over Kilmaurs –
A crest that bears a unicorn
Touches royal roots
As a poet’s tribute to a patron lost
Watches neighbors Campbell and Montgomerie
Then looks out on the seas from tidal lands
Of Ayrshire in flings and reels with swirling kilts
When explorer’s feet recall on new world shores
The mew of seagulls soaring –
Politicians, engineers and entrepreneurs -
Over Fork Over – Cunningham, a clan of auld.
Blocks of green and wine
Stripped with blue
Look back into the heather
Covering highland hills of country dances
Where spring wanders in hunting kilts
Beneath clear cerulean heavens,
Boldly enduring;
A crest that bears a coronet
Of storied noble and knight
Whose melancholy legend
Whispers in glens and gloaming
Of standard bearers for a king
Watched by Ogilvy and Stewart
Lindsay, a clan of auld.
Like sunlight bouncing off of autumn leaves
In crimson, golden amber, umber greening hues -
A sword dance of squares and lines in twirling kilts -
Near the sparkling waters of Loch Lomond;
Clan neighbor Graham and cousins MacCammon
See the crest adorned by a coronet
Prize of battle;
The wind remembers
Tiny windswept island Clarinch -
A battle cry of Clar Innes -
Campaigns of kings and exiled queens –
Chieftain’s seat sees a president and prospector -
Hence the brighter honor – Buchanan, a clan of auld.
Cousins of the same ilk
Bear the names of families -
Of highland lands
And lowland memories -
Seaside and mountain territories -
Kilts wearing colors interwoven patterns
Born of clans with
Tartans telling legends and the stone of destiny,
Plaids dancing at the piper’s hand,
Ancient names, though maybe hidden, still live –
Cunnyngham, Lindsey and MacCammon
Of Buchanan –
In Celtic refrains like iridescent whispers
Woven through clans of auld.
This is the story of my Scottish heritage through the mottos, the tartans, the history and geographic references to the clan homes.
Scotland, rich in pride
Braw mountainous scenery
Stands proud and salutes
Saltire shares the wind
Tartan Highlanders kilted
Kingdom of the clans
America, in this modern age
Population so proud
On their ancestors heritage
But in the annuls of time
Not that long ago
To a new world they came
Immigrants so
They travelled far and wide
Some further than most
Open invitation from their American host
Many reasons
As they left their homes
Some directly
While many roamed
To America's shores
In their many ports
Protection by, their military forts
To the land of plenty
And the home of the free
Where many immigrants settled
New future, families
The Scots Americans
Now American Scots
Left their shores
From a country so fraught
To sail the Atlantic
And escape the wrath
To hone in on their freedom path
To wear their plaid
A tartan true
America, has pulled us through
" Blàr Chùil Lodair - The Battle Of Culloden "
http://www.thehighlanderspoems.com/scotland.php
ancestral colours
rallying the clans
Culloden day trip
Highland culture filter
Words out of kilter?
KILT
KILL
DILL
DIAL
DEAL
PEAL
PEAN
PLAN
CLAN
No, clandestine link
Brings the Dress Act of 1746 to the brink!
The mighty kilt
On which highland culture is built