Inkwell

Ceramic and white, inset
beneath a metal slide
in an old school desk;
more than a hundred years
        since the last pen
        dipped to shape a letter,
        write a word.

Black residue had dried there,
an unreadable pigment, solidified
like the uncrystallised shape
of the final schoolday;
        when
        the wooden schoolroom was closed,
        the blackboard folded,
        the stove no longer lit
        until
        only later
tar and fishing gear
would clutter its corners
and tattered Gaelic bibles
        shed their pages
        beside the Wee Free tracts
        that blew and scattered
        over the deserted grazings
spreading the Gospel of before
to lonely sheep
and the bitter wind of forever.

© BH, 2026

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I sat down at the last remaining desk in the old school building near our cottage. I had nothing else to do and I wanted to write. The inkwell you see here was in front of me as I stared at the blank page. I remembered the stories of this place more than a hundred yers ago. I imagined the children who had burnt their names in the old panelling behind the ornate wood stove, now in the museum. I thought about lessons, the grass, peat and heather on the hill outside. I remembered the derelict shed it had become and the scraps of ruin left to the rain and the wind that blew through its open doors.

I wrote this. I took a photograph. Here you are…