Alistair Elliot

for Tony Harrison

Happiness, therefore, must be some form of theoria.

Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics, X.8

Theoria: ... a looking at, viewing, beholding ... ‘to go abroad to see the world’ (Herodotus) ... 2. of the mind, contemplation, speculation, philosophic reasoning ... theory ... II. the being a spectator at the theatre or the games ...

Liddell and Scott, A...

Things are turning up today. First, the tomato knife – God how we missed it! – After six months away In some underworld life Is back – I hope, for more than a visit.

Then, my best travel trousers, Immobilised by zip failures, Have got over their shame – I searched for them in three houses, A boat, and their manufacturer’s – They appeared on...

Somewhere among the roots of England my mother found her rules. Some shy Shakespearean aunt taught her to eat from fairy circles and how to name a tracehorse: Forrest or Homer –

coins from the wordhoard of our tribe buried in the angelic angles around home: in Long Chase, the Top, the Forty-Acre, the Pikel. School spread on this the alphabet and the best lines of Scott,

and a...

The cathedral was not great. You were a better poet Than it was a building. I forgot To look for the graffiti of imprisoned Scots, My possible ancestors – and yours – And stood there in my Sunday best Wondering if it had been spoilt by the restorers Or if it had always looked like red fudge A little mouthed by the weather of the north-west.

Hundreds of us were in our best To...

When the two youngest Elliots, not yet in their teens, were sent to school at Stoer, they lodged, like the unmarried minister, near the kirk, with old Mrs Mackenzie and her daughters in a house called ‘The Rage of Cats’.

Mrs Mackenzie fed them porridge and milk; potatoes and milk and oatcakes; perhaps a bite of potatoes and herring ... This powered them through four hours of...