Eggplant.place

119d

…but witness these brittle August
bluebells casting seed,
like tiny hearts in caskets
tossed onto a battle ground.

—Kathleen Jamie, “Reliquary”
published in THE TREE HOUSE (Picador, 2004)

1/4

https://www.panmacmillan.com/authors/kathleen-jamie/the-tree-house/9781509891825

#Scottish #literature #poem #poetry #history

Reliquary
by Kathleen Jamie

The land we inhabit opens to reveal
the stain of ancient settlements,
plague pits where we’d lay
our fibre-optic cables;

but witness these brittle August
bluebells casting seed,
like tiny hearts in caskets
tossed onto a battle ground.

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116d

Some days were running legs and joy
and old men telling tomorrow would be
a fine day surely: for sky was red
at setting of sun between the hills…

—Iain Crichton Smith, “Some days were running legs”
published in Deer on the High Hills (Carcanet 2021)

https://www.carcanet.co.uk/9781800170940/deer-on-the-high-hills/

#Scottish #literature #poem #poetry #IainCrichtonSmith

‘Some days were running legs’
Iain Crichton Smith

Some days were running legs and joy
and old men telling tomorrow would be
a fine day surely: for sky was red
at setting of sun between the hills.

Some nights were parting at the gates
with day’s companions: and dew falling
on heads clear of ambition except light
returning and throwing stones at sticks.

Some days were rain flooding forever the green
pasture: and horses turning to the wind
bare smooth backs. The toothed rocks rising
sharp and grey out of the ancient sea.

Some nights were shawling mirrors lest the lightning
strike with the eel’s speed out of the storm.
Black the roman rooks came from the left squawking
and the evening flowed back around their wings.

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120d

A poem by Stan Stewart: The Medicine I Carry. Written during a grief circle and ritual on the 23rd of August, 2025.
#poem #grief

https://muz4now.com/2025/the-medicine-i-carry/

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118d

In his darkroom he is finally alone
with spools of suffering set out in ordered rows.
The only light is red and softly glows,
as though this were a church and he
a priest preparing to intone a Mass.
Belfast. Beirut. Phnom Penh. All flesh is grass.

—Carol Ann Duffy, “War Photographer”
published in COLLECTED POEMS (Picador, 2019)

https://www.panmacmillan.com/authors/carol-ann-duffy/collected-poems/9781447231752

#Scottish #literature #poem #poetry #warpoetry #photography #journalism

War Photographer
by Carol Ann Duffy

In his darkroom he is finally alone
with spools of suffering set out in ordered rows.
The only light is red and softly glows,
as though this were a church and he
a priest preparing to intone a Mass.
Belfast. Beirut. Phnom Penh. All flesh is grass.

He has a job to do. Solutions slop in trays
beneath his hands, which did not tremble then
though seem to now. Rural England. Home again
to ordinary pain which simple weather can dispel,
to fields which don’t explode beneath the feet
of running children in a nightmare heat.

Something is happening. A stranger’s features
faintly start to twist before his eyes,
a half-formed ghost. He remembers the cries
of this man’s wife, how he sought approval
without words to do what someone must
and how the blood stained into foreign dust.

A hundred agonies in black-and-white
from which his editor will pick out five or six
for Sunday’s supplement. The reader’s eyeballs prick
with tears between the bath and pre-lunch beers.
From the aeroplane he stares impassively at where
he earns his living and they do not care.

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115d

Old gods and goddesses who have lived so long
Through time and never found eternity,
Fettered by wasting wood and hollowing hill,
You should have fled our ever-dying song…

—Edwin Muir, “To the Old Gods”
📷 Ballachulish Figure, c728–524 BCE

https://www.nms.ac.uk/discover-catalogue/a-mysterious-iron-age-figure-from-ballachulish

#Scottish #literature #poem #poetry #archaeology #IronAge #EdwinMuir

To the Old Gods
by Edwin Muir

Old gods and goddesses who have lived so long
Through time and never found eternity,
Fettered by wasting wood and hollowing hill,

You should have fled our ever-dying song,
The mound, the well, and the green trysting tree.
They have forgotten, yet you linger still.

Goddess of caverned breast and channeled brow,
And cheeks slow hollowed by millennial tears,
Forests of autumn fading in your eyes,

Eternity marvels at your counted years
And kingdoms lost in time, and wonders how
There could be thoughts so bountiful and wise

As yours beneath the ever-breaking bough
And vast compassion curving like the skies.

ALT

An early Iron Age wooden carved figure of a woman or girl, standing in front of a wall of woven twigs and branches. The figure is blackened with age, and the wood has twisted and elongated due to the lack of proper preservation when it was discovered in a peatbog in 1880. Carved from a single block of alder, at the time of its discovery it stood 1.4 metres tall (just under 5 feet). The figure has a large, heavy head with inset quartz pebbles for eyes, large ears, a distinct nose and mouth and a round chin.

ALT

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104d

Many thanks to the art lover from the United Kingdom for purchasing a greeting card of the haikuart design of @MarjoleinRotsteeg (haiku) and me (watercolor painting) of

A Robin follows - https://www.redbubble.com/de/shop/ap/167744632

#thankyou #sale #haiku #poem #poetry #robin #garden #gardening #gardener #MastoArt #art #painting #FediArt #FediGiftShop #arte #MastodonArt #contemporaryArt #watercolor #watercolour #creativeToots #BuyIntoArt #birds #BirdsOfMastodon #BirdArt #birding #nature #BirdWatching #handmade

with every dig
of my spade
a robin follows

Robin on a perch is a hand-painted watercolour painting in portrait format by the artist Karen Kaspar.
A small robin with bright orange breast feathers stands on a square wooden perch and looks around with interest. The bird was painted with loose brushstrokes and the background was left white.
The soft watercolour style gives the overall picture a gentle and dreamy touch.

This work, a combination of painting and haiku, is a joint project by Karen Kaspar (© art and artwork) and Marjolein Rotsteeg (© Haiku).
A haiku is a traditional Japanese poetry form consisting of three lines.

ALT

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116d

I pulled all my mother’s expectations
with me, like a child’s kite, giddy with stir
of spring…

—Lynn Valentine, “St Kilda Crossing”
from DON’T. EVEN. ASK. TOO. HOT.: New Writing Scotland 42 (ASL, 2024)

Today, 29 August, marks the 95th anniversary of the final evacuation of St Kilda. People had lived there for over 2000 years but, by the early 20th century, life had become too difficult to sustain. In 1930 the islanders petitioned for help to leave

#Scottish #literature #poem #poetry #StKilda

ST KILDA CROSSING
by Lynn Valentine

I pulled all my mother’s expectations
with me, like a child’s kite, giddy with stir
of spring. Because she was cancer-cracked
I turned tourist by proxy, crouched into cleits
looking for leavings of last century.

I photographed fawn smallness of Soays
felt the crash of wind-whipped stacs,
my pockets salt-filled. I leant
on those islands as my mother leant on me,
filled my lungs with their breeze
and leaping green language of sea.

I tried to hold my breath for days,
took it back to my mother, exhaled
island air on her weakened frame –
whispered broken stories of birds and rain.

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116d

Whan du telt me hoo du thowt o ‘luck’
as nae mair as chance, de happy hubbelskju
o aentropie, I thowt onnly o de ben-end
o my grandmidder’s hoose an aa her talismans
o tat…

—Roseanne Watt, “Lukkie”

https://www.scottishpoetrylibrary.org.uk/poem/lukkie/

#Scottish #literature #poem #poetry #Shetland #Shetlandic #Scots #Scotslanguage

Lukkie
Roseanne Watt

Whan du telt me hoo du thowt o ‘luck’
as nae mair as chance, de happy hubbelskju
o aentropie, I thowt onnly o de ben-end
o my grandmidder’s hoose an aa her talismans
o tat. Inbi, luck wis acht an lenned lik coins,
hot fae de löf. Dere wis wyes aboot it:
a sixpence fir de scratchcairds; tree skoilts
o a gingernut wid gie dee a wish; a dram
onnly ivvir gied sungaets roond de room.
Ee time, ower supper, shö telt me hoo shö won
an aamos fae a haafman; a beaded bag
fir a skurtfoo o her luck at sea. I browt him
tae de dance dat week, but someen took him
fae de cloakroom. Less. Dere’s joost some tings
dat du canna keep a haad o. Dat’s true enoff.
It seems tae me wir luck his aye been wattir
cupped by hands at prayer, in a langwich
at his mair wirds fir ill-luckit tings as fair.
Nivir leet, shö says. De lotto’s demoarn.
Can I git dee a gingernut?

ALT

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101d

Whaur yon broken brig hings owre;
Whaur yon water maks nae soun’;
Babylon blaws by in stour:
Gang doun wi’ a sang, gang doun…

—“Song”, by William Soutar (1898–1943)
published in William Soutar: Collected Works vol. 1 (Tippermuir Books, 2024)

https://tippermuirbooks.co.uk/product/william-soutar-collected-works-vols-1-2/

#Scottish #literature #poem #poetry #Scots #Scotslanguage #WilliamSoutar

Song
William Soutar

Whaur yon broken brig hings owre;
Whaur yon water maks nae soun’;
Babylon blaws by in stour:
Gang doun wi’ a sang, gang doun.

Deep, owre deep, for onie drouth:
Wan eneuch an ye wud droun:
Saut, or seelfu’, for the mouth;
Gang doun wi’ a sang, gang doun.

Babylon blaws by in stour
Whaur yon water maks nae soun’:
Darkness is your only door;
Gang doun wi’ a sang, gang doun.

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113d

Two stanzas from a song improvised by Stan Stewart after hearing about the murder and maiming of children in another mass shooting.
#poem #lyrics

https://muz4now.com/2025/our-hearts-must-change/

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113d

An lùib na droighne
anns an dris-choille
tha meas an fhoghair
toradh mo ghràidh…

—Niall O’Gallagher, “Crindreas”

https://www.scottishpoetrylibrary.org.uk/poem/crindreas/

#Scottish #literature #Gaelic #Gaidhlig #poem #poetry

Crindreas
Niall O’Gallagher

An lùib na droighne
anns an dris-choille
tha meas an fhoghair
toradh mo ghràidh

is dealt na maidne
a’ fàgail taise
a’ gleansadh air a
craiceann làn.

Tha brìgh na deirce
mìlse nas seirbhe
na gèire deilge
a’ stailceadh làimh’

ach dh’aindeoin bhioran
bu mhi a spioladh
is le mo bhilean
bhlaisinn àgh.

ALT

Bramble
Niall O’Gallagher

Translated by Deborah Moffatt

Amongst the thorns
in the thicket of brambles,
the autumn berry
is my heart’s desire,

the damp sheen
of the morning dew
gleaming bright on
its full ripe skin.

The sap of the sweet berry
is sharper than the thorn
that pierces the thin skin
of the plundering hand,

but I would pick my fill,
in spite of the pricks
that my lips might taste
the glory of the bramble.

ALT

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100d

Hope is punk rock.
Science is underground.
Positivity is counterculture.
Kindness is rebellion.
Empathy is radical.
Love is subversive.
Compassion is defiance.
Humanity is resistance.

Fighting back does not take grand gestures, but small moments.

So let your small moments be a revolution.

#poem #positivity #resist #joyousjoyness

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72d

We fecht to lowse oursels, we coup and skar
and joater menseless in the foazie grun,
feart to bide still, and fusionless to rin,
we plouter on, forfeuchan, through the haar…

—Robert Garioch, “The Bog”
published in A KIST O SKINKLAN THINGS (ASL, 2017)

https://asls.org.uk/publications/books/volumes/a-kist-o-skinlan-things/

#Scottish #literature #Scotstober #poem #poetry #Scots #Scotslanguage

Robert Garioch
The Bog

The lyft is lourd abuin the hechs and howes,
peat-bog and mist hae left nae space atween;
the puddock cours doun frae the wecht abuin,
here is nae leevin-space for men or yowes.

We fecht to lowse oursels, we coup and skar
and joater menseless in the foazie grun,
feart to bide still, and fusionless to rin,
we plouter on, forfeuchan, through the haar.

We rax doun, seeking rock, wi feet grown nesh
frae clatchin in thae never-ending clarts,
ettlin to traipse on stanes, to thole their scarts,
and win to some green haugh, kind to the flesh.

Tho weill we ken it's aye the same auld place,
we fuil oursels to pech and plouter on
frae this black oily puddle-hole to thon,
that gies the meisor of our hirple-pace.

Our thochts are aye on skinklan burns, dour rocks,
clean waters we cuid loup frae stane to stane,
bricht in the sun or weet wi dounricht rain,
dazzlit wi licht and stoun'd by solid shocks.

But maist we think of gangin ither airts,
whaur we micht hae faur distances in sicht,
think lang to traivel til a warld of bricht
pure colour in outlandish foreign pairts.

Sae we jalouse some howff juist owre the brae,
some hevin abuin the sterns, juist out of sicht,
whaur we cuid gae the morn, gin we micht
loup owre the muin, as did the famous quey.

Wanting some yirdlie hevin for Almains,
the Fuhrer maks a furore in our lugs;
we bield in ivory touers or Luftwaffe-skugs,
while bummlan boomers threaten broken banes.

ALT

Thae men that fetch us boombs frae yont the seas,
heich in their Heinkels, ken the same despair;
they maun skite flat-out on the slidder air,
forever doomed, like us, to future ease.

Nou the impassioned banshees, in F-moll,
screich out wi siren voices, anger-riven,
Beethoven's chord of Opus 57,
the same that skeiched us in the Usher Hall.

The causey street we staund on shaks and shogs,
freestane fore-storey housses flee in air;
real super-realism everywhere
maks grand pianos mate wi clarty bogs.

The bog—I ken the feel o't weill eneuch,
tak its conditions, staund and dinnae fecht
to lowse my feet, and find it tholes my wecht
ablow the haar, gin but my heid be leugh.

And here are colours braw as onie shroud:
broun and dark broun, black and mair black, an aa
the fud or hint-end of the watergaw,
whaur I hae fand my forpit-met of gowd.

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111d

This far north, the harvest happens late.
Rooks go clattering over the sycamores
whose shadows yawn after them, down to the river.
Uncut wheat staggers under its own weight…

—Dorothy Lawrenson, “September”
Published in Painted, spoken 22

https://www.scottishpoetrylibrary.org.uk/poem/september/

#Scottish #literature #poem #poetry #September

September
Dorothy Lawrenson

This far north, the harvest happens late.
Rooks go clattering over the sycamores
whose shadows yawn after them, down to the river.
Uncut wheat staggers under its own weight.

Summer is leaving too, exchanging its gold
for brass and copper. It is not so strange
to feel nostalgia for the present; already
this September evening is as old

as a photograph of itself. The light, the shadows
on the field, are sepia, as if this were
some other evening in September, some other
harvest that went ungathered years ago.

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112d

The mile-high buildings flashed, flushed, greyed, went dark,
greyed, flushed, flashed, chameleons under flak
of cloud and sun…

—Edwin Morgan, “Clydegrad”
CENTENARY SELECTED POEMS, Carcanet 2020

Today, 3 September, is Skyscraper Day

1/2

https://www.carcanet.co.uk/9781784109967/centenary-selected-poems/

#Scottish #literature #Glasgow #poem #poetry #ConcretePoetry #Skyscraper #SkyscraperDay

Clydegrad
Edwin Morgan

It was so fine we lingered there for hours.
The long broad streets shone strongly after rain.
Sunset blinded the tremble of the crane
we watched from, dazed the heliport-towers.
The mile-high buildings flashed, flushed, greyed, went dark,
greyed, flushed, flashed, chameleons under flak
of cloud and sun. The last far thunder-sack
ripped and spilled its grumble. Ziggurat-stark,
a power-house reflected in the lead
of the old twilight river leapt alive
lit up at every window, and a boat
of students rowed past, slid from black to red
into the blaze. But where will they arrive
with all, boat, city, earth, like them, afloat?

ALT

Book cover

EDWIN MORGAN
CENTENARY SELECTED POEMS

edited by
HAMISH WHYTE

Carcanet Classics

The cover image shows a view looking up the face of a concrete tower block, angled against a star-strewn sky – as if the skyscraper was a starship, cruising the cosmos.

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19d

Intil the pitmirk nicht we northwart sail
Facin the bleffarts and the gurly seas
That ser’ out muckle skaith to mortal men…

—J.K. Annand (1908–1993), “Arctic Convoy”
published in FROM THE LINE: Scottish War Poetry 1914–1945 (ASL, 2014)

https://asls.org.uk/publications/books/volumes/from_the_line/

#Scottish #literature #20thcentury #poem #poetry #warpoetry #ww2 #arctic

Arctic Convoy
J. K. Annand

Intil the pitmirk nicht we northwart sail
Facin the bleffarts and the gurly seas
That ser’ out muckle skaith to mortal men.
Whummlin about like a waukrife feverit bairn
The gude ship snowks the waters o a wave.
Swithers, syne pokes her neb intil the air,
Hings for a wee thing, dinnlin, on the crest,
And clatters in the trouch wi sic a dunt
As gey near rives the platin frae her ribs
And flypes the tripes o unsuspectin man.

Northwart, aye northwart, in the pitmirk nicht.
A nirlin wind comes blawin frae the ice,
Plays dirdum throu the rails and shrouds and riggin,
Ruggin at bodies clawin at the life-lines.
There’s sic a rowth o air that neb and lungs
Juist canna cope wi sic a dirlin onding.

Caulder the air becomes, and snell the wind.
The waters, splairgin as she dunts her boo,
Blads in a blatter o hailstanes on the brig
And geals on guns and turrets, masts and spars,
Cleedin the iron and steel wi coat o ice.

Northwart, aye northwart, in the pitmirk nicht.
The nirlin wind has gane, a lownness comes;
The lang slaw swall still minds us o the gale.
Restin aft-watch, a-sweein in our hammocks,
We watch our sleepin messmates’ fozy braith
Transmogrify to ice upon the skin
That growes aye thicker on the ship-side plates.

ALT

Nae mair we hear the lipper o the water,
Only the dunsh o ice-floes scruntin by;
Floes that in the noon-day gloamin licht
Are lily leafs upon my lochan dubh.
But nae bricht lily-flouers delytes the ee,
Nae divin bird diverts amang the leafs,
Nae sea-bird to convoy us on our gait.

In ilka deid-lown airt smools Davy Jones,
Ice-tangle marline spikes o fingers gleg
To claught the bodies o unwary sailors
And hike them doun to stap intil his kist.
Whiles ‘Arctic reek’ taks on the orra shapes
O ghaistly ships-o-war athort our gait,
Garrin us rin ram-stam to action stations
Then see them melt awa intil the air.

Owre lang this trauchle lasts throu seas o daith,
Wi ne’er a sign o welcome at the port,
Nae ‘Libertymen fall in!’ to cheer our herts,
But sullen sentries at the jetty-heid
And leesome-lanesome waitin at our birth.

At length we turn about and sail for hame,
Back through rouch seas, throu ice and snaw and sleet,
Hirdin the draigelt remnant o our flock
Bieldin them weel frae skaith o enemie.
But southwart noo we airt intil the licht
Leavin the perils o the Arctic nicht.

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100d

I gaed to spend a week in Fife—
An unco week it proved to be—
For there I met a waesome wife
Lamentin’ her viduity.
Her grief brak out sae fierce and fell,
I thought her heart wad burst the shell,
And,—I was sae left tae mysel,—
I sell’t her an annuity…

—“The Annuity” by George Outram (1805–1856)

Today, 15 September, is Pensions Awareness Day. Tak tent!

#Scottish #literature #19thcentury #Victorian #poem #poetry #Scots #Scotslanguage #humor #pension #pensions

The Annuity
George Outram

I gaed to spend a week in Fife—
An unco week it proved to be—
For there I met a waesome wife
Lamentin’ her viduity.
Her grief brak out sae fierce and fell,
I thought her heart wad burst the shell,
And,—I was sae left tae mysel,—
I sell’t her an annuity.

The bargain lookit fair eneugh—
She just was turned o’ saxty-three—
I couldna guessed she’d prove sae teugh,
By human ingenuity.
But years have come, and years have gane,
And there she’s yet as stieve ’s a stane—
The limmer’s growin’ young again,
Since she got her annuity.

She’s crined awa’ to bane and skin,
But that, it seems, is naught to me;
She’s like to live—although she’s in
The last stage o’ tenuity.
She munches wi’ her wizened gums,
An’ stumps about on legs o’ thrums;
But comes—as sure as Christmas comes—
To ca’ for her annuity.

She jokes her joke, an’ cracks her crack,
As spunkie as a growin’ flea—
An’ there she sits upon my back,
A livin’ perpetuity.
She hurkles by her ingle side,
An’ toasts an’ toasts her wrunkled hide—
Lord kens how lang she yet may bide
To ca’ for her annuity.

I read the tables drawn wi’ care
For an Insurance Company;
Her chance o’ life was stated there,
Wi’ perfect perspicuity.
But tables here or tables there,
She’s lived ten years beyond her share,
An’s like to live a dizzen mair,
To ca’ for her annuity.

ALT

$I got the loun that drew the deed— We spelled it o’er right carefully;— In vain he yerked his souple heid, To find an ambiguity: It’s dated—tested—a’ complete— The proper stamp—nae word delete— And diligence, as on decreet, May pass for her annuity. Last Yule she had a fearfu’ hoast,— I thought a kink might set me free; I led her out, ’mang snaw and frost, Wi’ constant assiduity. But deil ma’ care—the blast gaed by, And missed the auld anatomy; It just cost me a tooth, forbye Discharging her annuity. I thought that grief might gar her quit— Her only son was lost at sea— But aff her wits behoved to flit, An’ leave her in fatuity! She threeps, an’ threeps, he’s livin’ yet, For a’ the tellin’ she can get; But catch the doited runt forget To ca’ for her annuity! If there’s a sough o’ cholera, Or typhus,—wha sae gleg as she? She buys up baths, an’ drugs, an’ a’, In siccan superfluity! She doesna need—she’s fever proof— The pest gaed owre her very roof— She tauld me sae—an’ then her loof Held out for her annuity. Ae day she fell, her arm she brak— A compound fracture as could be— Nae leech the cure wad undertak, Whate’er was the gratuity. It’s cured! She handles ’t like a flail— It does as weel in bits as hale— But I’m a broken man mysel Wi’ her and her annuity.$

ALT

Her broozled flesh and broken banes
Are weel as flesh and banes can be;
She beats the tades that live in stanes,
An’ fatten in vacuity!
They die when they’re exposed to air—
They canna thole the atmosphere—
But her!—expose her onywhere—
She lives for her annuity.

If mortal means could nick her thread,
Sma’ crime it wad appear to me—
Ca’ t murder—or ca’ t homicide—
I’d justify ’t—an’ do it tae.
But how to fell a withered wife
That’s carved out o’ the tree of life—
The timmer limmer dares the knife
To settle her annuity.

I’d try a shot—but whar’s the mark?—
Her vital parts are hid frae me;
Her back-bane wanders through her sark
In an unkenned corkscrewity.
She’s palsified, an’ shakes her head
Sae fast about, ye scarce can see ’t—
It’s past the power o’ steel or lead
To settle her annuity.

She might be drowned;—but go she’ll not
Within a mile o’ loch or sea;
Or hanged—if cord could grip a throat
O’ siccan exiguity.
It’s fitter far to hang the rope—
It draws out like a telescope—
’Twad tak’ a dreadfu’ length o’ drop
To settle her annuity.

Will poison do ’t?—It has been tried.
But, be’t in hash or fricassee,
That’s just the dish she can’t abide,
Whatever kind o’ goût it hae.
It’s needless to assail her doubts,—
She gangs by instinct—like the brutes,—
An’ only eats an’ drinks what suits
Hersel an’ her annuity.

ALT

The Bible says the age o’ man
Threescore and ten, perchance, may be;
She’s ninety-four—Let them wha can
Explain the incongruity.
She should hae lived afore the flood—
She’s come o’ patriarchal blood—
She’s some auld Pagan, mummified
Alive for her annuity.

She’s been embalmed inside and oot—
She’s sauted to the last degree—
There’s pickle in her very snoot
Sae caper-like an’ cruety.
Lot’s wife was fresh compared to her—
They’ve kyanized the useless knir,—
She canna decompose—nae mair
Than her accursed annuity.

The water-drap wears out the rock,
As this eternal jaud wears me;
I could withstand the single shock,
But not the continuity.
It’s pay me here, an’ pay me there—
An’ pay me, pay me, evermair—
I’ll gang demented wi’ despair—
I’m charged for her annuity!

ALT

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108d

He moves the way light moves: now sudden,
racing up a field as sun clears cloud…

—Sheenagh Pugh, “Him Again”
Published in A Little Touch of Cliff in the Evening: New Writing Scotland 30 (ASL, 2012)

#Scottish #literature #poem #poetry

HIM AGAIN
Sheenagh Pugh

He moves the way light moves: now sudden,
racing up a field as sun clears cloud,

now unnoticed, leaching from the world
until you look up into dark.

And he inhabits next door's peat stack,
waiting for winter, and the fat sheep

ready for the show, and the gap
in the window of what was a house

and is a shed, and soon will be out of use.
The berries that were once white blossom

on the brambles belong to him,
so they say, and lose all their taste

on a certain day, when he comes to harvest
what is alive, and ripe, and his own.

ALT

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100d

It’s been a long Indian summer
and the hips are rotting on the beach rose.

I can almost taste their sour skins –
red balls of seeds glistening…

—Marion McCready, “Rose Hips and Thistles”
from MADAME ECOSSE (Eyewear Books, 2017)

https://www.scottishpoetrylibrary.org.uk/poem/rose-hips-and-thistles/

#Scottish #literature #poem #poetry #autumn #september

Rose Hips and Thistles
by Marion McCready

It’s been a long Indian summer
and the hips are rotting on the beach rose.

I can almost taste their sour skins –
red balls of seeds glistening

like fiery cauldrons in the late September sun;
green tentacles dripping below.

I’m dreaming of exotic gentians,
alpines, delphiniums.

But it’s the last of the flowering thistles
that stand before me

with their decadent helmets and feathers.
I think of Ellen Willmott

secretly scattering thistle seeds
in her neighbours’ gardens,

spreading pieces of herself – a legacy, to grow
and grow again when her body

is lowered to feed the earth
in a last great act of love.

ALT

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107d

The glitter of water and the wake…
Heading for University in Aberdeen.
It’s an autumn morning. I am seventeen.
Above the Isle of Skye the dawn’s a flag

of red infuriate ore…

—Iain Crichton Smith, “Aberdeen University 1945–49 (1)”
in DEER ON THE HIGH HILLS, ed. by John Greening (Carcanet, 2021)

https://www.carcanet.co.uk/9781800170940/deer-on-the-high-hills/

#Scottish #literature #poem #poetry #IainCrichtonSmith #Skye #Aberdeen

Aberdeen University 1945–49 (1)
by Iain Crichton Smith

The glitter of water and the wake…
Heading for University in Aberdeen.
It’s an autumn morning. I am seventeen.
Above the Isle of Skye the dawn’s a flag

of red infuriate ore. I see the train
for the first time ever steaming from the Kyle
beyond the screaming seagulls, in the smell
of salt and herring. There’s a tall sad crane.

The landscape, rich, harmonious, unwinds
its perfect symmetry: not the barren stone
and vague frail fences I have always known.
I hold my Homer steady in my hand.

All day we travel and at last dismount
at the busy station of that sparkling town.
A beggar with black glasses sitting down
on the hard stone holds out his cap. I count

the pennies in it. Should I freely give?
Or being more shameful than himself refrain?
His definite shadow is the day’s black stain.
How in such open weakness learn to live?

I turn away, the money in my hand,
profusely sweating, in that granite blaze.
Unknown, unlooked at, I pick up my case.
Everything’s glittering and transient.

ALT

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106d

The deid-hole’s a sma-boukit place for you.
You need tae be blawn aboot the cosmos
so’s your live matter mells wi the spaces
and you become the stour starns are made o…

—Alastair Mackie: In Memoriam Hugh MacDiarmid (1892–1978)

Christopher Murray Grieve – Hugh MacDiarmid – died #OTD, 9 September

https://asls.org.uk/publications/books/volumes/a-kist-o-skinlan-things/

#Scottish #literature #poem #poetry #Scots #Scotslanguage #MacDiarmid #HughMacDiarmid

In Memoriam Hugh MacDiarmid (1892–1978)
Alastair Mackie

The deid-hole’s a sma-boukit place for you.
You need tae be blawn aboot the cosmos
so’s your live matter mells wi the spaces
and you become the stour starns are made o.

Sma spirit, ye couped yoursel oot like an ocean
and on it ye sailed tae your odyssey.
Your poems set their bows for the infinite.
It was a sma bit coble made o Scots.

Ahent the muckle brae-face o your brou
barmed the thochts. They were like boolders,
ram-stam, ramgunshoch, aften wilyart. Polyphemus
hurlin craigs at the galleys’ hotterin starns.

And aye the sky-line cockit its fore-finger.
For fifty years laneliness was your crony.
Your spaces were polar anes, the cauld burn
o your mind the aixle-tree that iled your world.

I think o Pascal’s infinite spaces
and Scotland a wee dot in the abyss.
You gied it a starn; the muckle hole skinkles
yet in the licht. Sic matter never dees.

The terror that I feel is for the muckle howe-hole
your last sleep leaves ahent. As if a mountain
that held up the lyft had sunk intae the mools
and suddenly the sky-line’s unfrienly.

And oor steps styter and Scotland’s again
‘the bonny broukit bairn’. Lie back in your kist
licht bearer. And may the giant back-birn
ye cairriet lie lichtly in the earth’s happin.

ALT

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105d

Currently on BBC Sounds: Ian McMillan hosts poets Liz Lochhead, Robert Crawford & Hannah Lavery at the Edinburgh Festival

Hannah Lavery performs “Edinburgh is a Story”; “My Work is Loving the World”; & “Miss Has Started Using Sunbeds”

Robert Crawford reads “Camera Obscura” & “Mons Meg”

Liz Lochhead reads a selection of poems including “Trouble Is Not My Middle Name”; “Coming To Poetry”; & “Song For A Dirty Diva”

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m002htf2

#Scottish #literature #poem #poetry #Edinburgh