Ararat

Ararat may still be far off

and our ark may have run aground

but remain cheerful. We will attain The Summit. 

The next tide will surely lift the boat off the rocks,

and we will reach The Summit we see from The Square. 

Remain cheerful and prepare for the day. 

Do not try to hasten it. It will come. 

Do not act as though it's here already. 

Prepare. A Friday in April 1992.

We gathered in The Square. We felt it sway

with the spontaneous surge of people

pouring in from all directions.

We thought the flood was here already, 

and for one day revolution seemed possible,

but on Saturday we looked to the platform we set up

and saw gathering round the helm preening pilots 

for whom that deck was just a stage

to perform their self-importance on, 

an end in itself, careerist charlatans

who only steer towards the summit of their ambition. 

Analysis was offered where action was needed,

and directionless, the moment passed,

and the movement ran aground once more, 

but nothing was a waste of effort

not matter how it felt at the time.  

Even our frustrations prepare us.

Forty unforgettable days in 2014. 

Giddy, glorious, exhilarating summer days.

We gathered in The Square with the dawn,

flooding in with the rising of the sun each day

and dispersing at night in good humour,

and felt the waters lift the boat once more,

the keel teeter as our blue banners fluttered,

and its bulk shift, thrillingly, enthrallingly, 

irrevocably in our waves of blue and white,

but though the ship nearly slipped off the shoal

it stopped just short of Freedom, 

and some now despair as the waters recede

and strand us in swirling chaos once again, 

surrounded by fathoms not of our choosing,

and treacherous eddies of withdrawing water.

But do not try to haul us off the rocks!

The undamaged hull is swiftest in the water,

and we will need her intact once she is free.

Remain cheerful! Attend to your tasks. 

Refine your skills. Rehearse your part. 

Prepare,

for we will advance a third time

and gather in The Square, and look upon The Summit,

and that tide will surely lift the boat from the rocks,

and all our preparations will ensure a swift safe course

to the brighter slopes of our new Ararat.

(Written in response to perceived frustration, impatience and disunity in the Scottish Independence movement)