Edinburgh, 2018

Rose Street, in Edinburgh’s New Town, is not particularly new.  New Town dates back to the reign of George III, which is an era many of you know for the American Revolution. In comparison to the Old Town of Edinburgh–a snarl of alleys and ginnels, a mess of hills and ridges– this New Town is bold and orderly in layout.

But orderly facades are always facades, and architectural symmetry always belies the messier lives there housed.  So consider New Town.  The main streets (Queen Street, George Street, and Princes Street) are wide and regal.  But tucked between are smaller streets– more like grand alleys– running through the blocks, like veins through flesh.  And here lies Rose Street.

Today, Rose Street is a pedestrian road peppered with bakeries, pubs, restaurants, and shops, but it still retains a “back alley” aura.  Not least because it has an outrageous number of pubs, and sometimes an outrageous number of people stumbling out of those pubs and weaving from wall to wall the length of the street.  All told, it’s reputation is generally respectable, if just a bit sodden, these days.  It’s cleaned up a bit from the red light reputation it had 60 years ago.  In fact, it’s home to many more-than-reputable restaurants — 1780 being one I can heartily vouch for.

I bring up Rose Street today, because I stumbled on the lead photo for this post the other day– a photo I took of some street art , part of a series on Rose Street.  It struck a chord, but I had no idea what the verses presented were all about.  Today, I sleuthed about the internet to find that they represent bits of a poem by Scotsman George Mackay Brown, who, as it happens, used to drink in a bar named Milne’s, sat on the corner of a street named Rose, running like a vein through the arm of New Town.

Bottoms Up, dear George!  Today I celebrate your poem, “Beachcomber,” and think about Edinburgh’s New Town, sat side by side with a very old town and perched on the edge of a cold North Sea, both harsh and beautiful.

Beachcomber

Monday I found a boot –
Rust and salt leather.
I gave it back to the sea, to dance in.

Tuesday a spar of timber worth thirty bob.
Next winter
It will be a chair, a coffin, a bed.

Wednesday a half can of Swedish spirits.
I tilted my head.
The shore was cold with mermaids and angels.

Thursday I got nothing, seaweed,
A whale bone,
Wet feet and a loud cough.

Friday I held a seaman’s skull,
Sand spilling from it
The way time is told on kirkyard stones.

Saturday a barrel of sodden oranges.
A Spanish ship
Was wrecked last month at The Kame.

Sunday, for fear of the elders,
I sit on my bum.
What’s heaven? A sea chest with a thousand gold coins.

George Mackay Brown