I find myself as a vulture, eager to scavenge
At the bones of one so blessed but
But too mortal to use what the muses gifted.
On my shoulder rests fur
Attached to a cat who hopped off a gravestone
With the names of my ancestors licked onto his tail.
He tracks us over stones and around corners
Past catholics and protestants, towing this heathen
Towards a semblance of roots.
I trade one William for another and
Follow my soft guide through the rain
Past the waterfall my grandad splashed in as a boy.
His house long destroyed and rebuilt, unfamiliar,
His parents dead longer than the man I was there to see.
Where is that Molly buried?
The cat calls me along.
Molly Burns - poet 