A Winter's Dram

From my forthcoming Ebook, Scottish Poems and Reveries

Amber pools catch firelight
in crystal glasses held by weathered hands,
each dram a story waiting to be told.

The peat-smoke rises in memory
as liquid gold slides across tongues,
warming throats and loosening words
that have waited all year to be spoken.

Outside, winter presses dark fingers
against frosted windowpanes,
but here, the oak logs crack and settle,
sending sparks dancing upward
like stars come inside to listen.

One friend leans forward,
his glass catching light,
and begins a tale we've heard before
but love still –
the way we love the second pour
of a favorite malt,
familiar yet somehow new.

The Highlands swim in our glasses,
heather and salt-spray,
mountain streams and ancient stone,
while the fire throws our shadows
huge against the walls,
like giants of old sharing their mead.

Someone reaches for the bottle,
dark green glass gleaming,
angles of light swimming through
what remains of the evening's dram.
Each pour measures out not just whisky
but time itself,
precious and golden and shared.

And as night deepens,
stories grow taller than the woodpile,
laughter richer than the spirit,
until the final dram sits
patient in our glasses,
waiting to seal these memories
in amber.