aunt julia

Question 1

stanza one

Answer 1

Aunt Julia spoke Gaelic
very loud and very fast
I could not answer her -
I could not understand her.

Question 2

stanza two

Answer 2

She wore men’s boots 
when she wore any. 
- i can see her strong foot,
stained with peat,
paddling with the treadle of the spinningwheel
while her right hand drew yarn 
marvellously out of the air.

Question 3

stanza three

Answer 3

Hers was the only house
where I’ve lain at night
in the absolute darkness
of a box bed, listening to
crickets being friendly.

Question 4

stanza four

Answer 4

She was buckets
and water flouncing into them.  
She was winds pouring welty
round house-ends. 
She was brown eggs, black skirts 
and a keeper of threepennybits 
in a teapot

Question 5

stanza five

Answer 5

Aunt Julia spoke Gaelic
very loud and very fast. 
By the time I had learned 
a little, she lay 
silenced in the absolute black 
of a sandy grave
at Luskentyre. But I hear her still, welcoming me
with a seagulls voice -
across a hundred yards
of peatscrapes and lazybeds
and getting angry, getting angry
with so many questions 
unanswered