Miriam Nash was born in 1985 in Inverness and spent her early years on the island of Erraid, off Mull, where Robert Louis Stevenson’s family once worked as lighthouse engineers.

Lighthouses and the RLS connection form one of the themes from her new collection, All the Prayers in the House (Bloodaxe Books, £9.95). Here is a sample from it.

 

SONG OF THE MAINLAND

 

I’ll sing you a song of the mainland

Where the lights are always shining

Where the wind stays off the whiskey

And the bread is factory-rising.

~

We’ll go no more to the islands

We’ll go no more to the sea

For the lighthouses are empty

There’s nothing there for me.

~

And when we get to the mainland

We’ll give our shoes a shining

And run for the bars and dance halls

Till the sun is church-spire rising.

~

We’ll think no more of the islands

We’ll yearn no more for sea

For the lighthouses are empty

And have no need of me.

~

I’ll sing you a song from the mainland

With the lights above me shining

The wind still burns like whiskey

Yes, the bread is factory-rising.

~

O send me news from the islands

What’s churning, out at sea?

The lighthouses are empty

But do they think of me?

~

I’ll sing you a song of the islands

As the streetlights dull their shining

Of the darkest stretch of darkness

And its one light, tower-rising.

~

O take me back to the islands

O take me back to sea

For the mainland’s bright and gleaming

But what is here for me?