Northwords Now

Poetry
Camping
Ian McDonough
A fly died in my wine,
perhaps happily,
perhaps not.
The tent sweltered
under a late but virile heat
and we lay inside,
pole-axed after swimming.
Edinburgh’s cool streets
were a hundred light years off.
When the darkness closed
the Evening Star
hung so near
you could reach up and kiss it.
Kim’s Game at Kelvingrove
Jan Sutch Pickard
A single shoe, a crusie lamp,
postcards and a pair of knitted socks,
broken china, a gannet’s breastbone
put to use as a sugar scoop;
photographs of faded folk
without a smile between them;
Gaelic Bible, wooden mail-boat,
blown eggs of the St Kilda wren.
Take this length of tweed –
dusky brown wool of the Soay sheep,
spun and woven on a narrow loom
by the hearth at midwinter – take it
to cover up these random things.
Then try to remember them,
to replace them on an island
separated by sea-miles from the city,
from this museum, this gallery,
these glass cases that have frozen time;
try to place each thing
in a way that still makes sense.
But how to remember what we never forgot,
or ever know what’s to forgive?
Can such lost things remake a way of life?
Can these bones live?
Magdalene
John 20: 10-18
George T. MacIntyre
You saw him in the hodden of morning
afore it wus fully licht
and strave wi odd threids of memory gin
the rough wools wound ticht.
‘Caw cannie ma hinnie, caw cannie
fur A hinna been synd wi bliss
and A wud hae thee gang tae them
that could nae bide like this.
Braw Peter and ma bonnie John
hae snuck awa in fear
but the geid new day is in yer mooth
and the hail warld with thee here.’
The Same Hand
Brian Johnstone
Be it on the conscience of anyone who reads this
splendid little book that they say a prayer for the
soul of the wretch who wrote it.
Colophon, The Book of Deer, 10 th century
The pen laid aside, quill trimmed
for the next to use it, inks stopped
with a rag, dampened against decay,
and the book is closed. His fingers
tremble with the thought of it,
arms aching from the effort
the last day’s verses have cost him,
wretch that he is, allowed him
to finish the task. Leaf upon leaf
it is taken from him, his prayer,
his curse. A burden is lifted, laid by.
Stony Stare
Colin Will
for Richard Ingham
There’s a grey boulder sitting on the grass,
like a permanent sheep surprised into immobility.
Her gaze, if she had one, would focus
just below the top of the little rise
before the drop to the wind-ruffled lochan.
To me, the lochan and the mountain
are the reasons to be here;
to her it’s the grass. Who’s to say
whose vision is more relevant?
Tomorrow I’ll be away,
taking my flippant comparisons
to new pastures; she’ll still be here,
mutton turned stone, concentrating
on what matter matters to her,
the universal truth of edible green.
Spoor
(for Ian Abbot 1947-1989)
Richie McCaffery
The people who were best
at telling me ghost stories
as a child, are long dead,
the teller now the tolled.
All the children I knew
including the one I once was
have been murdered, their
bodies have not been found.
In the field a white dog runs
on the trail of some scent
fast as old newspapers
whipped up by the wind.
No-one is calling its name –
perhaps no-one knows it to say.
Còn
Maoilios Caimbeul
Dh’fheuch e ri innse dhaibh cò ris a bha e coltach
Nuair a tha thu sean ’s nuair a tha thu òg,
Oir bha cuimhne aige nuair a bha e òg
’s sheall e dealbhan dhaibh dhe na seann làithean
Le cù ’s cat air a’ ghlùin, ’s e na shuidh air baidhsagal,
Ach cha robh e cinnteach an robh iad a’ tuigsinn.
Thuirt e, smaoinich air reòiteag agus an còn
As a bheil e tighinn, cumhang aig aon cheann
Agus a’ sìor fhàs nas leithne agus nas leithne;
’s ann mar sin tha cuimhne a’ bhodaich, cumhang an seo,
An dràsta, ach beò, ’s farsaing, mar as fhaide air ais,
Ach cha robh e cinnteach an robh iad a’ tuigsinn.
Thuirt e, smaoinich ort fhèin, ’s gun thu ach dusan,
Tha an còn nas giorra, ’s tu cuimhneachadh air ais:
Ach tha còn eile agadsa a’ sìneadh air thoiseach ort,
Còn prìseil do bheatha ’s gun fhios agad dè an t-uachdar
Reòthte iongantach a bhios tu ag imleachadh,
Ach cha robh e cinnteach an robh iad a’ tuigsinn.
Còn na cuimhne air do chùlaibh ’s còn air do bheulaibh,
Còn iongantach dìomhair do bheatha,
Agus smaoinich ormsa, an seann duine ’s an t-uachdar
Reòthte air leaghadh ’s an còn toisich fada nas giorra,
Fuachd an uachdair air mo theangaidh a’ fàs nas fhuaire,
Ach cha robh e cinnteach an robh iad a’ tuigsinn.
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Northwords Now Issue 30, Autumn 2015