Windows

The Window

By Donald Adamson

When I think of home
I do not think of walls, rooms or a roof
but a window and the hill I saw from it
all through my childhood:
spring mist-bonnet, blue heat haze in summer,
autumn cloud-cap, wintry tip of frost,
not mine but on a lease
whose rent is paid in every breath I take 
and, if I'm allowed,
in ashes cast some day on the hill's flank. 
I don't possess it, can't bequeath it, yet
I wish the same for all who wander earth
from want or war or new-made boundaries,
that they may keep a loveliness within:
a window to look out from, a simple square
framing, hugging an abiding memory
and sense of their belonging, mirror-clear,
whatever the train of years
or hope – if hope there is – of a return:
this is the place that made me what I am. 

The Window by Donald Adamson - Scottish Poetry Library