The Biggar Poems

andrew mccallum the biggar poems

White Craw

This collection first shared by Andrew McCallum 2016

ISBN: 978­1­326­80886­0

This is a freely licensed work, as defined in the Free Art License 1.3, the text of which can be found at http://artlibre.org/licence/lal/en/ This license grants the right to freely copy, distribute, and transform this work without the author's explicit permission.

Front cover illustration: digitally remastered from a photograph of one of a series of collograph prints by Sarah Knox, inspired by plants gathered at Duddingston fields in Holyrood Park. The original image can be found at: h ttp://www.sarahknoxgallery.co.uk/#/duddingston­fields /

to biggar and all that it signifies

eating biggar like a sandwich

I’m going to eat biggar like a sandwich I’m going to eat it all by myself I’m watching my weight

calories must be counted so I shall not eat a star nor wash it down with something light like moonbeams I’ll decline a croissant moon filled with clouds à la mode I won’t sprinkle it with sugar I’ll eat biggar like a sandwich piece by piece I shall chew on it spit the gristle and stale bits out I’ll have it medium rare smothered with onions and when I’m asked if I’m full I’ll say no I can never get enough of biggar I’m never filled up it is (after all) just a sandwich I am eating nothing more sometimes I may order a side of chips (make of it a supper if you will) but still I will eat it all I eat biggar like a sandwich my diet will never change

how to make a blf 1

take a clydesdale market town season it with people break and blend the yolks of tradition in a modern marinade stir from cock­crow to owl­screech till everyone is dizzy as a fast­turned fork flash­fry some watercolours hull some late soft flutes infuse a jig with enthusiastic fiddles coddle a carton of free­range actors devil their actions flambé their lines add a bouquet of books simmer gently remove the leaves when almost done raise the temperature to a rolling boil dredge with anticipation

1

Previously shared at Biggar Little Festival (BLF)

View from Knowehead Farm

The hills have soaked the blueness from the sky, and dyke and whin are bent as mindings of relentless winds.

Deep shadow­fissures split the flesh on ancient brows and hollowed cheeks.

Snow patches liver­spot the braes.

And here I stand on this knowe’s head, in this late winter, the enduring eye through which these hills disclose themselves.

after the painting by Eileen Hood

beneath bessie’s bridge

once upon a time in mechanics class given the shapes and measurements of spans piers abutments and the location and dead weight of that passing lorry I could have foretold and even explained the force exerted on any part of this structure but now I simply listen to the fading away of a lumbering ogre the soft rush of the medwyn

the air above the surface vibrates it doesn’t belong to the wind the rain the swift current beneath it breathes and gathers barely­moving shades of mist into apparitions within which now a host of midges hovers and spirals in a dance like interlocking spokes each becoming every other diminishing to half light

and less and less and disappearing and suddenly coming back to light again as if they’d been waiting just here just now just to show me this

september nicht, biggar 19782

the hoggs greit i the slauchterhoose pens randie louns are haein a swallae ootby my door the hunter's staumpin aboot the lift wavin he's stave at the tinklin staurs

I pou the hap up owre my heid smouer the rattlin roarin rammie, ettlin ti sleep ontil the suin wauks the flouers aince mair ti lood perfume the hin­end o the nicht

2

Previously shared in Gutter Mag

The Hay, 1940

Long shadows lounge behind the stouks; men sprawl near the shearer, too tired to leave the field.

They talk and smoke; the tips of their cigarettes blaze like shot­starn in the night air.

The moon comes out to count the stouks, and herried birds sing from the stourie stubble.

The last sweet exhalations leave with the song of the birds; the roupit field grows wet with dew.

for Chrissie Anderson

ghosts

their farms lie forever­beyond the edge of the moonlit fields

along distant roads ­ the drum of hooves

water oozes from the blue of midnight the horses drink hurriedly whinny ­ then are to be heard trotting back to the stable again

Quean For A Day

Quean for a day, we’ve dicht yer croun wi blossom frae the hawthorn tree, an led ye throu oor mithers’ toun ti shaw the warld hou braw we be.

Lang winter past, the plantin by, the corn loups green aneath the sun, an owre its mirror o the sky wind­ripple crosses lik a haun.

An in the coorsin o oor daunce ye staun the stillness o its ee, the rood roun whit oor ribands chaunce, oor steid o youth an strenth ti be.

Heich grou the birks on Knock’s lee­brae, the gowans blenk the wuids lik queans, the hoggs an stirks are freithin tae, an pyats flird abune Crosscryne.

O Maid o us, we coort ye pey ti celebrate oor wauk’nin sels, the furthwart times ti sanctify, in this, the dawin o oor spells.

for Ashleigh Short an the 2005 Biggar Gala Court

Hogmanay

We burn wuid in the street.

It’s auld year’s nicht.

Its flames licht up the lamps that line the street.

We, the leivin, tirn oorsels inti shaddaes ti cam naurer the deid, here, in this toun, whaur the deid aince bid.

Their los brings hame ti us the exístence o anither warld; a warld as daurk as the nicht, as waarm an sleekit as the flames.

Burning the Old Year Out

They bring the fire from the foot of the town, well kindled with whisky, and proceed up the High Street, drawing the old year out the doors like wraiths to its flame.

The light flickers against the shop fronts, turning the windows into sheets of melting ice; flame­shadows descend from the Common with their dark mesolithic voices.

The present gathers at the Corn Exchange, puffing on its hands and stamping its feet, impatient for the future and to let the deed shaw beneath the solstice.

Not long now… the old year approaches on a skirl of pipes, tethered to the torchlight, and driven on by whirling balls of flame past the houses of Fleming and Elph.

The crowd parts to admit the sacrifice, which trembles like a bride before the towering pyre.

A cornet hands her to the altar; an elder steps forth.

The year is tinder­dry. It crackles

and roars at the stars.

Torches are tossed to the flames, their bearers glad to be done with them, as lang syne passes in a plume of smoke.

Biggar Little Festival3

A guid­gaun wee place, ay punchin abuin its wecht, wi its theatres an societies, musicians an poets, aa livin aff a haunfou fowk – haes the neck ti dae onythin.

Pits me in mind o MacDiarmid, a gemm wee bantam o a man, wha’d staun he’s grun agin ony chiel in a square­go, wi he's fist o a face an mind o mass destruction.

Mind you, it sud come as nae surprise.

Biggar fowk hae ay bin guid at grouin things, lik kye an neeps an rugby players.

They’d cultivate onythin, so’s they wad – hou’s no the human spírit?

3

Previously shared at Biggar Little Festival

Writer­in­Residence4

The writer brings words to the towns and villages in her cadger’s pack, laying them out on the greens and taking our breath away.

The exchange is fair; for behind her as she leaves, from her cadger’s pack, our words flutter on a string like bunting in the sunshine.

for Linda Cracknell

4

Previously shared at Biggar Little Festival

poetry garden

webs made visible and invisibly laid by the frost on the trees

car engines moan and the irritation of horns punctuates their plaints

fingers of cold creep around my throat and scratch at the nape of my neck

the scent of damp earth sticks in the roof of my mouth tasting of water

green wood heaped for the bonfire moulders and decays on its forest floor

our words steam the glass of the poetry boards ­ the frost makes flowers of their breath

Sclimmin the Knock

I was pechin an pantin bi the time I cowp’t on ti the tap o the hill; sae I’d nae braith left for the sicht ti tak awaa.

I juist stuid there, haudin a stab o the fence, while my lungs tried ti sook some sap frae the cauld dry air that sowp’t atween the trees.

Fair puggelt, so I was; deid duin.

Sae it was oot the corner o my ee, juist, that I saw the hills ayont Coulter loup lik dolphins owre the waves o the land wi a glaister o sunlicht on their backs, an saltire skies keekin at them throu the cloods an clap­clappin their hauns wi glee.

It was a gledsome sicht, richt eneuch.

I mind it weel, e’en tho I was in nae fit state ti appreciate it then, that sair prest I was juist ti draw wind.

But in’t that the wey, hou the things ye haurlie tak tent o at the time, the unco things, can get sneck’t i the faulds o yer memory an fester there lik a corm afore comin ti floo’r?

Aince I’d got my braith back, I birl’t ti see some snawdraps chappin their wee green beaks throu the shell o the earth.

An I mind thinkin

hou some chiel maun hae plantit them there lang syne, i the memory o the hill, juist so’s a body lik mysel micht ane day spy them.

Coulter Glen5

We coorie in the crook of a sheepfold, our faces and fingers numb from the wind, and we find ourselves in a pocket of silence which the surrounding roar only amplifies. We look at one another and laugh a little nervously, like we did when we first experimented with sex.

A flame lows in the ember of your eye.

Your body looks strange in its boots and socks, moleskin trousers and cagoule, like they don’t belong. They sit on you like gift­wrap on a potted plant, loosely, slightly disowned.

They are too new and unfamiliar, like this feeling of solitude we share.

for Ruth

5

Previously shared at the Fort William Mountain Festival

quothquan where ruth was met

sometimes I go there just to lean my head against the tree smell the freshness of the moss slide my face against the roughness of the bark

and if I wait long enough the grey sky turns starry just like that night when your mouth was warm and the story was new and the minutes were hours

Pyatknowe

I can see ye frae my bedroom windae, stappit lik a stane tummelt intil a cleuch.

The roadman’s cottage stauns prood an waash’t white agin the hillside, steerin brazen­lik owre the toun, whiles alang the road ye couer in yer drab, unassoomin an botherin naeb’dy, heid weel doun, howpin nane’ll see ye.

An that’s whaur I’m frae ­ my mither’s birthplace.

I’ve cam a lang wey sin syne, richt eneuch!

Hauf a mile at maist across the bog, across girlhood, maidenhood, widaehood, an my ain stutterin life, heid weel doun, ti staun at this windae an leuk back on it.

for my mither

Cinq Cinqain on Biggar Pond6

Today, the boating pond is almost deserted; only the waterbirds remain this late.

A breeze combs the surface, teasing out its tresses in rippling waves across the pond’s mirror.

Two swans, staid and stately, sail seven seas among a busy harbourful of ducks and gulls;

strung out in their wakes bob a squadron of cygnets, fully grown but still moulting brown and grey.

The trees on the south bank nod their heavy shadows low over their own reflections, sun­spent.

6

Regional winner and national finalist in the Ottaker and Faber Poetry Competition. Previously shared in The Eildon Tree

gillespie

two women talk in the gillespie centre they could be lovers their intimacy is a naked light their words recline on auricular couches

I watch their lips linger within an intermediary vision a go­between oracle only they can interpret

one woman lowers her eyes entering a confessional space it is a place large enough only for the two of them

lipstick on china cups the twirled edge of a napkin the unclasped mouth of a purse arranged on a tablecloth of magnetic relationships

the women surface introverted by whispers a diffident tilt into humour as they settle the bill

leaving the gillespie they kiss each seems to carry the other's onus of care sheltering each the other’s body from the cold

not having died a winter yet

every day it snowed snow that was always gentle never lashing or searing snow that was soft around the eyes

and every day it stopped and we’d all look up to see a scoundrel sun in a cloudless sky a scoundrel sun yawning over freshly packed gutters sheets of ice on the pavement dogs standing like discarded concertinas litter trapped like specimens under platen glass

and all that mattered then was the way old folk walked down the frozen pavements without ever falling over or failing to notice the holes in the sky their remaining days moving there back and forth first one then another falling gently like the snow

natívity pley

a dizzen smaa weans some wi dish­clouts roun their heids ithers flauchtin wings

stotter owre the words o sangs wi gey smaa meanin buit wi muckle soons

ilkane’s een alicht wi staurs.

biggar primary nursery class christmas 2007

first day at school

apple­faced children swinging brightly coloured lunch boxes bent under the weight of heavy backpacks

a sliver of a girl navigates the freshly swept playground like a skater teetering on thin ice her grey pinafore hangs loose as a sack on a thin rack of bones a pair of socks on each foot keeps her shoes from slipping off

eyes wide with wonder she passes through doors of hope and salvation for this is the place, she's been told where promises have been made where dignity will always be respected where no child is left behind

for john edgar

Biggar Playgroup

It’s an awfu job!

Things flichter aboot this warld whaur I fand masel, duntin inti me; chairs that canter lik spíders an chap the legs frae ye; toys that fuind their weys aneath yer feet an coup ye on yer bahookie.

A job richt eneuch!

But there’s nocht else for it but ti sprauchle on…

An it’s a wunner, so it is, wi aa its wee bits, babs an buckles, that leuk as if they maun hing thegither; but damned if I can faithom hou!

Gin they’d juist staun still for a meenit, so’s I cud get a grup o them…

But, na: the warld’s a sluipperie, slutterie place, wi nae haun’les.

a booncin baa

the wee laddie was comical chasin the baa as it stoatit aa owre the schuil playgrund

ilka time he catch’t it an bent doun ti pick it up aither the win wad caa it oot he's hauns or else he'd dunt it wi he's fuit an awaa it wad stoat

twa­three o us on oor wey hame frae wark war staunin cheerin him on Gaun yersel, son!

but we laucht a deein lauch ilkane o us a wee bit sair at the thocht that we cud nae langer follae a booncin baa

the heron place

on a walk by the burn the place where I once saw a heron pleases me as much as the heron did

now it will always have a name the heron place and in the name ­ the story a small one I can turn over stonewise in my pocket

it fits my palm nicely and swings with the rhythm of my walking

medwyn below greenshields

grinding age­old stone into ever finer tilth the medwyn quarries

in deep narrow cuts it sifts through silt with its spade searching for something

we have built this bridge over its labouring back from which we can watch

but the river is too intent in its seeking to t ak tent of us

little mitchellwood

letting the deed show in clearing and copse the sunlight sings of a loving labour lilting the seedheads echoing birdsong

it’s we who make the woods in which we dwell through the care with which we bear its trugs of light hand­crumble its soil enlacing them with lillikines of leaf long limbs of poetry our solicitude

wind trembles the green of little mitchellwood dappling the air with whispers

geese at skerlin mill

dusklight packed with geese drifting down in a yodelling vortex disconsolate at odds with one another peering into the flooded field and floating on its pale skin like lost souls in a mythology

biggar market 19197

my grandfather should have acted then stirred a swarm at the hiring fair by dancing his crow dance in his nicky tams his seckie flapping in gusts of fury his toothless beak cacking cacking cacking till it made a mad murder of all the servants

then they would have descended on the farms seized the means of production hammered ploughshares into halberds pitchforks into pikes sickles into scimitars cut the throats of the beefy farmers tupped their daughters and levelled the enclosures turning parks into riggs again

then in his last days my grandfather could have hirpled to market a free man a h aill man redeemed from all the flatbeds and four­by­fours that clog its gaits

7

Previously shared at Edinburgh Festival Fringe

vietnamese boat people ­ kersewell 19798

sae mony bodies in sic a smaa space the boat tuimin owre wi smaa snorlie shapes swelterin haiselt wi drouth the raiglar heeze an faa o the wuiden flanks

we rowed the bairn in a bangyel o claes

whan the watter groud scrimp the wee anes wad staun an pou clae bowls wi lang thick raips the feel o the raip lik a cuddie’s mou baith saft an shairp hauns – tottie wee hauns – spleet an bluidin skin smoor’t in saut hair stoukit an white the steuch o seik the walls fou wi yellae sea watter

the speik is tocht in a wee offícial room bi a body that’s no o oor tung stuipit­seemin we set ti moothin the speik grespin at the soons that cam oot o oor thrapples a speik we dinna hae in oor herts

sae mony bodies in sic a smaa space

on the twalt day the bairns stertit ti dee

8

Winner of the Scots section of the 2013 Wigtown Book Festival Poetry Competition.

we douk’t oor fing’rs intil the watter­bowies an follaet the line o the lips owre an owre scrievin myndins on til oor fing’r­ends

we rowed the bairn in a bangyel o claes we grup’t the heid an the feet an wauk’t ti the faur end o the boat ane – it leukit lik a game twa – it leukit lik a game three – an… wheech! the bangyel in the air lik the shue o a hammock fleein throu the smaa space an drappin intil the ocean swall

first fuit an the girse is green they gaither us alang ti richt an left frae here ti there they cam an aa – lang syne – in boats ti dalriada that lang syne they canna mynd nou whit it wis lik but here seein us naur braithin oor braith they mynd oor fear

kilbucho kirkyaird9

o their hoose nocht remains but the grummel o a brucken waa

o the mony that war sib ti me nocht remains no even that

but in my mynd no ane cross is tint this roupit toun is my hert

9

Previously shared at the Mamilla Poetry Festival, 2010

kilbucho

a blue veil drapes the hills autumn has embraced the farms the harvest is almost done the urgency of the work moves time faster friesians’ breath steams in early morning pastures

from white hill the valley opens its patchwork of fields and shaws the hills mirror the serenity of the sky of clouds that have ceased to care if or where they drift and people this side of the kirkyard wall how do they live how fortunate they are to witness another year fulfilled

corn stubble stands against the cold a sharpness rides the breeze the hill slopes into a hollow where the crannie­moss stands awash in seed­swollen weeds cattle wander up the hill to where the flame of a tree rises behind a drystane dyke

I turn and walk downhill towards the road

bheagha

1. at kilbucho

she had no language for what she said to god because closer to the truth was a certainty that the language would overwhelm her that the radiance of those words would deny her the radiance of her world

she looked at it the world of night and day of approaching storms with their black thunderous holiness sweeping over the burns and into the hills and she knew that in that other language the one of wordless dialogue the holiness would not disappear nor the storm nor the burns nor the hills they would simply be more than she could ever bear the whole world more and more forever and ever unbearable

2. at st bees

a lucid green

her eyes held space open for the ocean (or maybe this was just another way of seeing the shore birds the root­hairs of the dunes ripped loose)

her birdlike vow was to endure above any form of being to become the lightness of a forest clearing through which a golden season filters down

brigid

a mourning dove rustling in the trees

the harps are silenced ever since her miracles stopped the sisters have wept and wept

and when the keening starts shrieking under vaults and beams light catches the dust in every window and these stones begin to glisten as though they were polished metal

and a pigeon warbles in the nunnery while her hagiographers nod their heads intently listening from the eaves

kilbucho kirkyaird, july 2015

Leafs an Beuchs

A dyke. Drystane. Eevy. Marl’t bark whimplin.

Sun ayont. Leamin throu leafs.

A wee kirkyaird caad Kilbucho. Nane cams here but the licht.

Leafs uphaudit ti the lift.

Win owre leafs is a cantation that the stirlins ettle.

An aiblins the deid, rowed i the daurk yirth.

I see the craigs o the lift throu a nairrae slap atween the beuchs.

Sloosh’t open bi the win, leafs an beuchs lat sun eneuch ti blin me.

Shaddaes in a neuk o the dyke ablo black bunnet.

Eiklin in breer. Scowkin ahint bindwuid.

The daurk sickle o a swift's body pirls ayont the beuchs.

Beuchs brak the licht. Leafs caup an tremmle wi it.

The leesome neuk is tacht agin it. Shaddaes haud their braith.

Ayont Kilbucho the lift louts ti set her gowden crummock doun on stoups o clood. The yett scrapes shut.

The cleek faas intil its roustit raut.

Beyond Our Thresholds

Here, where land enfolds water and journeying defines land’s end, we are contained by the dimensions of vision, made tame by the breadth of the sky.

Beyond our thresholds the sky absorbs us.

We are the ascents and descents of the hillsides, old roads that cling to skylines; caught by the winds that stroke green fields, the surging bores of cloud­shadow, we mumble with the voice of journeymen, hold horizons in our hands.

Beyond our thresholds the rain knows us, the cornfields think about us, silos fill with grain; and further, to where oceans start and end, we need not venture.

headwaters

before there were names and numbers before the birth of words it rose in vowelless slush a swollen eruction of ooze and trickle a deep­jawed spring a broth thick with dialect a narrative slopping over the lip then gushed warbling through scrub­banked courses its watery voice clefting palates flushing twigs and leaves (in a dostoyevskian debris of linguistic matter) into pooled vocabularies bringing language to clattering mills phrases to floodplains these wending miles of soft­tongued river

'we are the hands that placed the pot inside the grave'10

scant evidence of other lives burnt bone a piece of flint a pot a bead or two smears upon a stone we focus on these tiny scraps to bear upon a past where gods lived and were placated drove through grass blades crackled in the skies hurled rainbows hid the face of moon and sun kept us in our place we are the hands that placed the pot inside the grave the love that mourned awhile and then moved on we are the piece of broken bone the pile of dust our technology – a piece of flint our power – a bead or two the chambered cairn cuts out the sky above our heads stamped with lichen bound by bracken root and we move on through mornings ­ evenings towards each new horizon slanting sunlight scribing its circumference

10

Written to mark the opening of Biggar and Upper Clydesdale Museum

is it any wonder11

I come from a tribe of nature worshippers pantheists believers in fairies forest sprites and wood nymphs

who heard devils in their watermills met them in the woods cloven­hoofed and dapper gentlemen of the night

who named the thunder

who praised and glorified bread white wheat waving waist­high from the earth and held it sacred wasting not a crumb

who spent afternoons scavenging in forests of pine fir and birch

who transferred jesus from his wooden cross transformed him into a stone­carved peasant raised him on a stone pedestal where he sat with infinite patience in rain and snow stone legs apart stone elbows on stone knees stone chin in stone hand worrying and sorrowing for the world

11

Previously shared in Poet and Geek

who named their sons and daughters after amber hazel rowan dawn

is it any wonder then that I speak to trees flowers and bushes or that I bend down to the earth gather pebbles acorns leaves bones and bring them home to enshrine on mantelpiece and shelf corner and hearth

is it any any wonder that I grow nervous in rooms and must step outside from time to time to touch a tree or sink my fingers into the soil or just watch a bird fly past

heavyside

nesting tractors bloom in the moonlight I am called to open my heart to the crimson seed of darkness

now the dawn walks towards every window wearing silver slippers the dew sings the soft hills run with sheep

a native wildness calls me out into green hollows where red poppies gather

I am called to be kin where the nightlights fade into mist and tales of long­buried blood

looking at the hartree hills while I stroke my son’s hair12

these hills of ours so familiar they are almost forgotten seen so often they are almost invisible nothing more (seemingly) than the furniture of a painting

these sullen hills that suddenly engross us are now perhaps only a manner of speaking my grandfather walking the characteristic lilt of our place

I like to caress them slowly following with my eyes their feminine lines while on their backs the light imperceptibly changes from green to gold to blue to violet

for matthew

12

Previously shared in Poet and Geek

wolfclyde

once we went chuckie­skimming at wolfclyde a pale winter sun rose above the old railway embankment we talked we could not hear each other above the ruckle of water I do not remember what the sky looked like only the pale winter sun but there was a sky for sure

time is short nowadays nowadays I have too many problems to solve I sip a problem with every sip of coffee I inhale a problem with every draw at my cigarette I put on new problems each time I change my socks

when shall I love you

for matthew

from whitecastle hill

brand new light crinkles like cellophane on the fields wakening the birds

scarves of mist muffle the neck of whitecastle hill a curlew beckons

latches click, doors close figures move upon the land singly, intently

the sky is the bright iris of a peacock's eye wide and unblinking

starlings swoop and swirl in a curling wisp of smoke slowly dispersing

the sunlight settles in a lawnchair and watches its shadows playing

the sky expands and deepens as the earth contracts hunching its shoulders

the setting sun slides its knife between cloud and earth releasing a skylark

the peacock swells and spreads a tail of stars across the darkening sky

midnight comes and sweeps the valley clean with its broom moonlight laves the earth

hare

We raised a hare. It surged like the wind, combing the grass down against the hill.

We lost it when it stopped, became a turf.

– Sandy Laird, ‘A Walk to Cowgill’

skimming the grass defying gravity with its joy or fear weight thrown off its back like water

the sky trips over its coiling muscle it hurls a tunnel of space ahead of it the grass parts where it is yet to bounce

the heart waits for such moments the pulsing blood the weightless leap pushing its way through rapture

eyes blind with ecstasy ears set back our hearts too bound away from the tips of our grey whiskers

for sandy

fox

the fox knows that in this harrowed field it is all alone

it also knows it is part of the field and the whole of it too

it is the wind and withered grass the fading light on fox­coloured earth

it knows that it runs like the wind faster than light no longer seeable godlike

all that is seeable is the sight of it in moonrise above this harrowed field

fox 2

I open the kitchen door a fox appears in the yawn of light it crosses the garden a red cloth wiping the dark

who are you?

I ask

I am it says

what is left over

at the gates of paradise lost

today I went to see ian’s garden in its summer frock and saw paint­rags hanging out to dry ian himself – captured and destroyed – the moorland – our sky­time – divided by drystane into hours and minutes

(ian’s garden is the love we give­to­get of bygone times and are well­satisfied)

inscribed stone doors faithfully wait to open us to his purple autumns the message of him flashed in yellow medlars in the seething stormy winds

and in the seething wind today among pythian laurels I felt the darts of unseen gods and nymphs tributes to a people cursed and weeping at the gates of paradise lost

little sparta, august 2014

roe deer in a mesolithic landscape

coats set for frost antlers pointing to a different life where I would follow they wheel and jink in e lrick flight a red artery through the land the fallow earth shining still with discarded velvet

which is just how our ancestors linger a last dash of ochre a sanguine hand a wilting call

elsrickle, march 2015

at the dark green core

it is may bitch cleuch brims with great splashes of purple white and mauve they shimmer in the shade light up thickets of ferns

there have been rumours of wolves returned smudged tracks in the mud a glimpse of grey some wildness at the dark green core

I cup my hands drink deeply keep watch over my shoulder

the manor burn twists its silver ropes coils them over rocks mumbles the words of its ballad

but it will not tell me who has passed this way whose footprints these are shining wet on the stone

for tom bryan

devil’s beef tub

a formation of four hills laying their heads together to shut the daylight from the dark hollow space between them damned deep black blackguard­looking

a place where demons dance where jacobites tumble jihadis are martyred in hailstorms of shot

the end of a long sweaty walk from a town unknown to the ancients who once dwelt here in this roofless cave sacred in its solitude where the night’s stars are viewed and pondered from the nexus of a universe

drove road ­ threipland hill

beneath the turf nothing is left but the time it took the earth to smother their voices circumspect scratches

an intaglio of paths a few unwavering channels that irrigate our imaginations signs of where a wave rose ran tripped and sprawled the marks men make while travelling to the stars on b auchelt feet

cairn

first a single stone white pear­shaped inexplicable resting on a slate­grey summit then more varying in size in shape and colour in stability a grove of stones huddling the ground flanked by sky stillness become shape density a presence emanating from within themselves making palpable the hush of rain as it falls to the earth of the wind as it shifts in the stones

here is hallowed ground approach it gently circumspectly in such places on such days listening is all that is possible

waves of mist lift and settle over the stones eoliths of memory relinquished but alive given up

given over they do not cover or contain they are composed

we stand on a slate­grey summit listening to a cairn being listened to

on tintock tap for my brother, chris

sleep

I love sleep I know it’s politically incorrect and culturally inappropriate to be saying this but I love sleep not caring whether someone’s going to bomb glasgow airport or a syrian hospital

and I love sleep at 56 for in sleep I don’t remember anything about myself or what I do I love lingering in my bed with a bit of a dream here and a bit of a dream there but nothing substantial or even (come to mention it) worth mentioning

I love sleep

years ago in carnwath while working as a quarryman I had workmates who also loved sleep the only two things they did were

go out to work and go back home again to sleep

‘I love sleep’ one used to say ‘for you dream of things beautiful things you’ll never see anywhere in the world and there you can build your castles in the air’

‘I love sleep’ said another ‘I wish it would come night and never come day again for a thousand years’

thus I learned that we were orphans with nowhere to go except to work and to sleep and I felt kind of sad both for my workmates and for myself

I love sleep I know that when I sleep I’m wasting my life and I know that knowing that I’m wasting my life

is also a waste of my life but despite all my knowledge I still cherish the time just after I awake when I hear the birds calling out to one another among themselves birds I don’t hear in sleep

but I’m growing wordy now I’ll stop soon ­ just let me say that I love sleep

I dream a little though I never recall anything of my dreams this afternoon I went to my brother’s deathbed we talked about his plans for afterwards he said he planned to lead the life of a leisurely cloud and wild geese criss­ crossing a pale blue sky

I shared his conceit although I know our sleeps will be different

for chris, in his crossing

l’écosse profonde

cow breath creak and clump of cloven toe hay spun into circular brochs crow cough of l’écosse profonde

a mythical place that exists only in the eye of its inhabitants

a place of recursive atavism a den of fertility

a beggaring of history where death and lovemaking are still transacted according to mesolithic ritual

where folk drench the earth with the sweat of their days before returning to invisibility

autumn equinox

last night beneath a moon­blue sky the wind came up out of the south­west strong and unexpected

it tore words from our mouths sparks from our campfire flung their quick lights towards the windlestrae

moon and sun balanced the sky sunset and moonrise promised perfection we were almost content

this morning a heron flew over the dam moving from north to south grey winged in the sky liquid pink on the water

it crossed the wall and turned westward the world in its head the ash of our words on the ground

tala linfoot for adam and daniel

winter

the pairks leam wan an cauld the lift is lanely and undeemous kaes fotch abuin the dub yowes are brocht in frae the hilltaps

sílence bides i the bleck treetaps firelicht flichters i the ingles faur awaa a vyce dirls a gray muin rises slaw

a yowe dees quate ahint a dyke craws plouter in her bluidie harigalds sprets staun an chitter yellae in their stooks frost ­ ryme ­ a fuit­faa i the emp’y wuids

winter fields...

frosted black and white a balance of opposites a geometric stalemate

rows of stark stubble where once barley and wheat were patchwork­planted each to each

now there is just stubble and crow earth holding up sky fields folded between fences

from the poets’ bus13

the sun rises quietly this morning no reds no pinks just snowy landscape etched in black outlines of hills crosshatched gullies cattle inked byreside around bales of hay fenceposts – fat indexicals on a lined page fragile signs human marks of differentiation separating place from place

13

‘The Poets’ Bus’ is the Stagecoach 101/2 service between Biggar/Dumfries and Edinburgh, the route of which follows a wealth of associations with poets and writers, past and present.

crossing the equinox

between seasons winter not done with us spring yet to arrive scruffy hills turn a little greener daylight preens spreads its feathers crows fan their wings clatter and clack in the trees making a racket that passes for song

startled they pour from their roost a long black scarf unwinding their raucous talk shredding the air resurrecting the trees moving from darkness to light

thankerton, february 2016

Ecce Homo14

Frae wuids an fields gaithert in sheuchs o the hills the fairmer steps intil an onbrukken laun, he’s neck loupit roon wi a bicker o seed, twa dugs tirlin tales ’neath the soop o he’s haun.

Abuin he’s stoup’t shoothers the hills heeze a sang til a blaewort­fou lift an the smirr o the sun; yit naither a leuk nor a thocht daes he cast til the hairvest ahint that he’s labour haes won.

For he’s darg lies afore him, the stent o he’s braith maun be skailt makkin halie the scabbit an mise; sae ay he steps intil the furthwart o times, sawin seeds o he’s spírit ti mak the deid rise.

efter a windae in St Isadore’s Church, Biggar, bi Roland Mitton

14

Previously shared in The Eildon Tree and in The Smeddum Test: 21st Century Poems in Scots

august...

and they’ve baled the hay the way it should be done cast golden dice across the stubble fields beneath an orange sun men in bunnets boys in baseball caps come to stack them one by one on trailer backs and lay them by for winter feed the way it must be done

a silver slip of light at dusk escapes the easing’s fading line midges glitter above flat fields dancing in a steady round of silence the scent of earth and sweet cut grass relieves the fields unswaying flatness fermenting hay is pressed in silage pits for winter days (winter seems so far away) a lullaby of empty fields the way it should be sung

Easter...15

the flinty boned season, through which the wind whistles and scours the remnant rags of flesh from this sheep’s carcass, leaving its sticks bleached clean and white on the bitten grass.

There can be nothing more utterly dead than this, this filigree of bone beneath a sky flaking sleet, and the three trees naked on the crest of Pyatknowe.

Yet already the grass loops strong pulling stitches around its ribs, while a gowan peeks a timid eye through the empty socket and the trees bud beads of blood.

15

Previously shared in The Eildon Tree and at Callander Poetry Weekend

crossin the crine

forenicht… clear efter rain

i the west a yellae licht sky soum’t clean an cauld as jade

the road sclims curve efter curve the toun sluips awaa ahint knoweheid…

doun amang thae spreckles o licht my hoose is blenkin

Castlehill ­ Symington

There is nothing to be seen of the iron age fort that once kinged this castle, but some half­dissolved earthworks smothered by turf and melting over the crown of the hill; even the dirty wee rascal, who haunts your visits here and runs to you with the tale of his life, is only a stumble in time that you catch and steady and keep from falling out of memory.

There is significance surely in the fact that it’s a child who scrambles over these ramparts and prefers to their refuge the sanctuary of a mother’s eye; an iron age child, into whose waiting you are at last delivered as he greets your homecoming.

for Lara Boyd

wallace16

ye war an awfu man a richt bother, in fac ye an yer gang gaun stravaigin owre the kintrae fechtin the polis

aye, a weel mind the nicht ye gat inti a stour ootside the cross keys bi richt they sud hae taen ye then ...buit they didnae

naw, ye ay haed the swick o joukin in an oot landin a guid punch then meltin ghaistlik awaa gin they cud catch ye

there's bin mony a whap twix then an noo in touns up an doun the land some lang­myndit whiles ithers are lang syne forgot

an e’en tho yer body haes lang bin quarter’t ti the warld's fowre corners ye’re aften ti be seen still fechtin the polis 16

Shared previously in The Wallace Muse: Poems and Artworks Inspired by the Life and Legend of William Wallace, and in Dance the Guns to Silence: 100 Poems for Ken Saro­Wiwa

in kashmir, iraq, afghanistan tiananmen square tormentin tyrants aa’whaur wi yer muckle sword

biggar burn

caurvin yer wey wee tearaway burn cursin an sweirin steady an strang

the graivel bed tells o yer traivels clean an clear wi garrulous sang

whummel awaa wee tearaway burn an be ti the yirth lik luver ti luver

surrender yersel ti the airms o the tweed ablo winter's mune wee tearaway burn

aye… hurry awaa wee tearaway burn an dinnae leuk back the past is gane

Cadger’s Brig Acrostic17

Cowp’t owre the trauchelt burn Aside the ford, so’s we Dinnae get oor feet wet Gaun hame frae the Cross Keys, Ev’ry stane is trampit Richt fast inti place bi Sumpenteen centuries o passin.

Bricht is the mune – an Roond as a bell ringin In the wee smaa oors – that Glints the waater aneath yer keystane.

17

Previously shared as a poetry postcard at Biggar Little Festival

Cadger's Brig – a Gaitherin

Whit is biggit honestly is whit is groun or upbuildit as a gaitherin o the fowrefauld.

But this gaitherin is nocht but a thing, mair nor less; a "tryst" or "assembly".

­ Martin Heidegger: ‘Upbuildin, Dwallin, Thinkin’

Ye'll tak a drink, bi Christ!

Here, man; grup the coggie, makk’t wi the gods in mynd.

The dram it hauds ingaithers the yirth that bore the grain, the lift that gien the rain.

This cup was wrocht ti gie aliment ti a man, ti be twice­aised bi us ti awn oor freenship an ti honour the gods.

Sae tak the coggie, man, its fowrefauld gaitherin, here, on the auld stane brig.

For this is a place whaur yirth, sky, gods an mortals micht haud their tryst a wee.

Moon Over Biggar Common

Bright moon, when was your birth?

Pint glass in hand, I ask the deep blue sky, not knowing what year it is tonight beyond its sphere.

I long to fly there on the wind, yet dread those crystal stars, those infinite zeros, freezing to death among Saturn’s rings.

Instead, I rise to dance with my pale shadow; better off, after all, in the world of men.

Rounding the Knock, stooping to look through bedroom windows, the moon shines on our insomnia.

It knows no sadness.

birthwood

I pick up a stoat’s skull and hold it to my ear

in its empty chambers I hear not the sea but the wind in the top nest of a tall smooth­shining beech tree…

…snake­whistling

outside st mary’s18

wednesday nights choir practice stained glass without god love without the word to weigh it down wind in the trees coaxing leaves to life branches swaying, cradling the light

is this the holy spirit so delicate that those who hold it cannot feel its weight it is colour and wind tree and kirk like art and love with given breath as real as brick and glass as voices singing light splashing limbs wind riffling leaves

for trish reith

18

Previously shared as one of ‘Three Poems for Trish’ in Samplings

faux­haiku

a sudden snow shower steals from st mary’s churchyard the names of the dead

Biggar Kirk

They stuck ye up on thon hill, I’d jalouse, ti mak ye bigger than ye really are.

For nou that I’m richt up close, I can weel see ye’re nae mair as a paukie wee byre.

But mebbe an aa ti lift oor een on occasion frae the riggs an mercatplace, an mind us that there’s muckle mair ti’t aa than grubbin in glaur for oor daily breid.

An tho I’ve no much aise for ye masel, an staun forby ootside yer language gemm, I’m kin o gled ye’re there ti glower at us an lowse oor cley­claggit feet frae the grun.

elegy in biggar kirkyard

as unyielding as mythology hasty in its grasp for meaning a concoction of time and language of garbled truths a song you cannot comprehend birds and ghosts each singing louder than the last a phase of the moon as indecipherable as the moment of birth as the instant of death birds as heavy as ghosts ghosts as light as birds maggot morsels that once were something else fires from other times words from other places birds with the voice of ghosts ghosts as natural as birds visitors come and go one by one or in anxious groups among fearless birds enduring ghosts

At the Co­op

An auld wife leans on her dauchter's airm, her een meet mine, she smiles, an the contents o a weel­stocked life fill shelves doun mony aisles.

Hazelnut Shells

It is as far as I can reach, this terrace where you sat munching hazelnuts and watched the river thread its sinew through the Pentlands’ eye.

Your look as raw and hard as stone saw this sky, these hills; this wind lifted your hair and brought to your nostrils these scents of water and of earth.

Eight millennia between us; yet shoulder to shoulder in the same land we sit, you feasting on hazelnuts, me picking up your discarded shells.

Biggar Young Archaeologists’ dig at Weston Farm

Overburns

All along the Upper Clyde, quarries pit the landscape; holes gouged by fingers from the earth.

­ Dorothy Wordsworth, Diary

Pelt­bent neolith, hunched in the deepening cavity, burning a clod of fat to guide you to the face.

Here is the blood­smell of antler and scapula, scraping chert from ancient sediments.

Behind you, nine heads gifted to death; a phallus for the fertile tap­root.

A planet’s gravity presses down on your descent.

Your ribs are streaked with mud and silicate.

All day long you haggle with devils, quarryman, for blades buried in river­slag, until dust­drunk and sun­shy you rise to the birch­brushed sky, to the comfort of air, to the sound of hammerstone and trade.

clydesdale

I was born to you my skin is pale as starlight my blood soaks deep in your soil I am your son

with the wind at night let me set foot on the land and know that I am home

Brownsbank ­ Midsummer Night

We forget the time, it is still so light as we stand here talking yet.

Through half­open eyes the world takes our measure, wishing us asleep.

The trees have drawn their shades and turned the sky’s blue flame down to a peep,

and what dark there is hangs strawberry nets over the still quick colours.

There is the silence besides, deeper than the dusk, sharper than the stars,

that loudens our voices, more clearly enunciates the words we exchange.

We talk in murmurs; yet still the night growls at us to keep the noise down.

for Josephine and the two Junes

Brownsbank Cottage19

A breath of wind catches in the gean­tree, fluttering the dry leaves and the small change of the sun, and it seems for a moment that the light is whispering.

There are ghosts in this place.

They are to be heard in the mouse­scratchings, the seedpods cracking in the tindered broom, the suck of the draught beneath the kitchen door.

The Grieves still move through these two rooms in slow mutual orbits, with no need for words, familiar and comfortable in their companionship; two chittering lights, fingering the relics of their lives and touching lightly the lingering echoes of the laughter and the poetry with which the silence thrums.

And on such an evening as this, when we have silence yet over the Border hills and the gloaming gathers close about the door, on the doorstep his voice still softly sings:

The rose of all the world is not for me…

for Linda Cracknell

19

Previously shared in The Eildon Tree and in Brownsbank: an anthology of writing inspired by Brownsbank Cottage, the last home of Chris and Valda Grieve

Gean Tree

The buirds are at the geans, screichin an thrashin, chappin at the teuch skins, doukin i the juice. Their beaks are bricht wi wine in this saison, this year, this epoch o the gean; seeds that traivelt by boat frae Asia Minor, rowein i the huil, cauld agin the German Sea, syne tuim’t in haunfous intil the syle o Caledonia.

The buirds are fruit­fou nou, ettlin ti flee oot o the lift. Bluid on their tungs, they’re breeshlin frae beuch til beuch, lik a man fechtin ti sort somethin invísible, or an attersome wummin ceukin up a tale anent whitwey they’re here, hair wild wi colour, flingin fluits o wine intil the air.

i.m. Valda Trevlyn Grieve

brownsbank – au clair de la lune

you lift the curtain and see the rising moon brighten with pure light the water and the field and flow like breath over window and door

it will move through its cycle full moon and crescent again calmly beyond our wisdom changing old to new

but for now it brightens the candy burn singing perhaps a macdiarmidean song so far away in space its breath so close on the night air

for lorna waite

brownsbank cottage

revenants think it is a boat and climb in to see if this boat will still move now its mast is dismantled and the waves stilled

revenants wait and refuse to sleep because this is not the time to miss the boat come this once to their coast

this stone boat this stubbornness over something that is not expected to happen again

a visit to macdiarmid

1.

trees struggle in the frame of the window their shadows elusive on the carpet the blinks of a curtain caressed by the wind

the cottage sits on an emerald knowe drowned in a rustle of trees

sky­darkened walls fall in love when they see the last rays of sunset opened windows let weather into chris’s room late summer warmth explodes the chills of early autumn the slight hiss from the fire reminds him of snow

the cottage is lost to the winds of history all that is left are these rare and fragile moments when building and landscape interior and exterior converse in serene complicity

2.

someone is reading poetry it sounds beyond the scope of the mysteries with which the falling night veils the silence blueing the flame in the hearth coiling in the pit of his contentment

life walks by in freshly mown hay

the scent of which is suspended above the tweedies’ fields

back elevated with cushions his body sits his heart beating to the arrhythmic of the universe his glance hanging above the window a bird that hovers and disappears

3.

whalsay winds once slapped his face his limbs now fail in their movements his breath is falling apart

each day begins and ends in the window the information he receives he welcomes with avidity

life walks, its voice lowered through the garden’s fallen leaves a breeze stirs, a heartbeat the rustling of a body that is loath to leave

valda trevlyn’s widowhood

i brownsbank

from her front porch, valda watches a line of sparrows perched on a dripping wire

summoned, one bird flies followed by two and then three more

she wonders will the rain dowse the fire in her hair or do the sparrows have good reason to skedaddle

ii michael

valda once rocked a cradle with a slippered foot humming a simple lullaby

(that time holds her still)

then her world said thank you and good­bye

valda feels that soon there will be no one left to tell her what it is like to be a little boy

crossing the threshhold she now goes out her door only to come back in again

iii beneath the gean tree

together with her wheaten terrier valda steps through the shades of another autumn dwarfed by a shared stillness

their footsteps whisper

she remembers fondly how easy their music was the fragility of their notes

iv grace carrick’s portrait

valda once dreamed of being a hummingbird, a tiny stained glass window with wings

as a young girl she ran like light breaking across wet green grass

people say that she now

looks like her mother

at night, alone, that thought scares her half to death

v the poet

a drunk man is heard in her garden garrulous under a full moon

valda almost joins him but she knows she cannot

vi kernow

what has she done but made myths out of souvenirs

watched the night rain fall with its one thousand eyes

loved the world as nature would have it from its ringless lobes to its shoeless toes

vii bereft

a dark evening of october rain

she stands beneath her blue roof the birds of summer lost in her hair

viii after chris

all day long they argue over the naming of animals about the different colours of whisky

before sleeping she relents and leaves him the last word but only because he was her last man on earth

brounsbank at nicht20

the trees dinnae sleep tho some sit up in bed an kid on

some nod aff for a wee but ye’ll niver catch them in the daips whaur dreams cam

some strip aff walin ti spend the lang nicht nakit wi nocht atween them an the dunk fog but some raggit shreeds o moss an crottle

ithers keep their claes on as they watch the mune chynge frae sickle ti chris grieve’s watterie ee

but come the daw they aa rax an yawn an sticks faa aff their heids

20

First shared in Brownsbank: an anthology of writing inspired by Brownsbank Cottage, the last home of Chris and Valda Grieve

by the waterbutt

For the person you will be, whom perhaps I might not understand.

– Jorge Luis Borges, ‘Inscripción’

this is the piobaireachd’s last movement its ùrlar dripping into the old waterbutt

in the manner of the blind poet for each drop I offer seven dreams

the hush of leaves before the onslaught of eskdale winds

the scent of pollen’s golden flight after a bee has danced on the little white rose

the fishing boats in symbister harbour dawn silvering the catch in their nets

the first sheaf of corn from tweedie’s harvest after the last summer storm

the threshold of sunset across which thoughts flit to the morning side of the world

the last drop of ink on paper upon which the poet completes the release of his beloved

fingertips lightly touching my hand in greeting as if you were still here

first hymn to macdiarmid

car­bomber of certainties merry troublemaker we bring to you the great satan some scotch myth of anglophilic construction of hegemonic lore burning in our veins

the world is said to be the world but you say ­ NO realms of passion dirl the chasms shake the ground on which we walk macdiarmid enraged our singing wren

you have the courage to exceed the sum our desires the audacity to cultivate our paradoxes to deconstruct the world with wild and rhythmic thought happily kamikaze

~

you sit for margaret tait

on the outside you move anonymously through labyrinthine streets your silhouette a stain a point in the mass of pub drinkers

inside you are peaks and abysses a cry a revolt the thirst of a desert awaits the freshness of your step

~

a poet you are but poets are ten­a­penny here in our cultural marketplace in the comfort of our heritage in vain you rage against the guardians of your prison

nightly you suffer the same ordeal the same sair fecht you attend a continuous outpouring of words a cacophony which pours from you and floods the silence and in which you submerge entire happy in a world that cannot congeal

and blessed are the devils who gesticulate arrhythmically in the pit of your guts offering scotland each day five million­odd chances to reinvent itself to regenerate its senses

to dance

your improvisations disassociate your quest from reason carries it to the roots of being an animal of the margins you respond with a growl to the necessities of logic to which an all­powerful guttural corporeality you oppose henceforth

~

lang syne you believed that each man is called to reinvent himself in another language

in angus burghs you left your first and last name dismantled every sentence of your story anonymously you went and rebaptised yourself

in turn you were river squall the stony limits of a raised beach you named the sky in all alphabets you married syntax planispheres you swallowed your tongue in a feminine universe

one evening on whalsay a kernow quine confessed her beauty

and the horizon suddenly fell silent on behalf of the other you froze depopulated evaporated

(to those who search the landscape’s grammar beware such roads lead to madness )

~

brownsbank you no longer have the strength to say the northern lights nor the hyperborean who once stood up in you your anthem is weakened stones no longer want you as a friend

yet you recur eternally you stand motionless nights without end head against the sky you alight on my shoulder a breath a bird a comet

you tried to enter the miracle of the moment drunk you uprooted the thistle in every verb

with any alphabet...

...in vain

you cannot win without losing (and vice versa)

the simple fact of your poetry proves that you failed

no vertigo no vortex no wren­song can ever be fixed

little white rose revisited

I stepped out into the garden to pluck a flower it shook its leaves in my face fought me stubbornly raked my hand with its thorns

now I wait at the corner of the house I stand and feel the rose trembling in my hand its hot black blood leaking into the dark