Jenny Stewart - Poetry in Caithness Dialect

Ma Kaitness

by Jenny S Stewart

O Kaitness, pleyssie o ma birth means all e world till me,

Ids coast-line lek a bairnies scribble, rough an jaggedy,

Gret chownks o rock howked off as stacks by times remorseless waves,

Ids salt-encrusted cliff-tops homm o skirlin braves.

Ids no fit ye'd ca green an sproutin, 'cept aboot e edge,

Mayde up in most o pure broon peyt wi scattered win-blown hedge,

E Camster Moss stretched oot for miles no cheynged throughoot e ages,

Ids cairns defyin Faithur Time an elements mad rages.

Lochans dotted here aboot lek sapphires on e moor,

Black anes filled till brim wi secrets o some hellish oor,

Rabbids run demented, senseless creyturs squashed till deyth,

Soon stripped till bonns by gutsy crows at revel in e greyth.

Tummeled hoosies left as tomb-stons till e by-gone men,

At loved an cultivated Kaitness, lived in but an ben,

Weemin woarn wi hevvin bairns, at twinty past thur prime,

Boadies wraxed wi sheer hard work, a owld afore thur time.

A broth-pleyte o e past an future, Week set in ids ways,

While Thirsa's a new-fangled custom-beelt for comin days,

Dounreay fins thum splittin atoms, futuristic, aye,

Boot crofter ploughs an sows an hervists as in days gone by.

Wur fowk are hardy, hed till be, boot played richt herty hosts,

Till them at traivelled far an wide till settle roond wur coasts,

Iss pleyssie gets ablow yur skin, ye tune in till ids beyt,

Ah'm gled ah've Kaitness in ma veins, id sets ma blood on heyt.

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