BOOK ENDS

The end of a book and the end of a year. I have just finished reading this book (details below) and want to sign off the year by selecting text from the very last page. It is actually a poem by the author, Alexander McCall Smith, set at the end of the narrative.

Domenica says to Angus that a poem is called for, by way of a celebration.
"Very well" he says, "A poem about small things....".

Dear one, how many years is it - I forget -

Since this luminous evening when you joined us

In the celebration of whatever it was that we were celebrating - I forget -

It is a mark of a successful celebration

That one should have little recollection of the cause;

As long as the happiness itself remains a memory.


Our tiny planet, viewed from afar, is a place of swirling clouds

And dimmish blue; Scotland, though lodged large in all our hearts,

Is invisible at that distance, not much perhaps,

But to us it is our all, our place, the opposite of nowhere;

Nowhere can be seen by looking up

And realising, with shock, that we really are very small;



You would say, yes, we are, but never overcompensate,

Be content with small places, the local, the short story

Rather than the saga; take pleasure in private jokes,

In expressions that cannot be translated,

In references that can be understood by only two or three,

But which speak with such eloquence for small places

And the fellowship of those whom you know so well

And whose sayings and moods are as familiar
As the weather; these mean everything,

They mean the world, they mean the world.


_____________________________________________________

This book is the compilation of a series of daily articles which ran in The Scotsman, an Edinburgh daily newspaper, in 2005. (It followed on from a similar serialisation called 44 Scotland Street which ran in 2004 and keeps the same characters.)

The book details are here on Alexander McCall Smith's website.

Top photo: Courtesy of NASA
Bottom photo: John A. Spider's web taken in front driveway