Èistibh - by
Feuch an tigeadh guth
tron t-sàmhchair.
Feuch an tigeadh guth
tron t-sàmhchair.
A nighean a’ chùil ruaidh òir, fada bhuat, a luaidh, mo thòir; a nighean a’ chùil ruaidh òir, gur fada bhuatsa mo bhròn. Mi nochd air linne Ratharsair, ‘s mo làmh air an stiùir, a’ ghaoth gu neo-airstealach a’ crathadh an t-siùil, mo chridhe gu balbh, cràiteach an dèidh do chiùil, an là an-diugh ‘s […]
I say her phrases to myself
in my head
or under the shallows of my breath,
restful shapes moving.
The day and ever. The day and ever.
You could travel up the Blue Nile
with your finger, tracing the route
while Mrs Tilscher chanted the scenery.
Tana. Ethiopia. Khartoum. Aswân.
My boy is painting outer space,
and steadies his brush-tip to trace
the comets, planets, moon and sun
and all the circuitry they run…
I love all films that start with rain:
rain, braiding a windowpane
or darkening a hung-out dress
or streaming down her upturned face…
Just as any truly accurate representation of a particular geography can only exist on a scale of 1:1 (imagine the vast, rustling map of Burgundy, say, settling over it like a freshly-starched sheet!) so it is with all our abandoned histories, those ignoble lines of succession that end in neither triumph nor disaster, but merely […]
About to sit down with my half-pint of Guinness
I was magnetized by a remote phosphorescence
and drawn, like a moth, to the darkened back room
where a pool-table hummed to itself in the corner.
Base Camp. Horizontal sleet. Two small boys
have raised the steel flag of the 20 terminus:
me and Ross Mudie are going up the Hilltown
for the first time ever on our own.
Whatever the difference is, it all began
the day we woke up face-to-face like lovers
and his four-day-old smile dawned on him again…
Thou’s welcome, Wean! Mishanter fa’ me,
If thoughts o’ thee, or yet thy Mamie.
I remember once being shown the black bull
when a child at the farm for eggs and milk