Fàilte

Gaelic

Earrann an Neach-deasachaidh:
Tha ‘Fàilte’ le Màiri NicGumaraid a’ toirt oirnn smaoineachadh mun dachaigh – dè a th’ ann, dè a b’àbhaist dha bhith, dè bhios ann fhathast, dè tha gann, an e àite a th’ ann? Le bàrdachd biorach, luath, plùchta thug an dàn seo orm meòrachadh air dè a tha a’ toirt beatha dha àite gus ‘dachaigh’ a chuir air fhad ’s a lean mi smuain a’ bhàrd air gach buille. Chan eil fhios am an d’fhuair mi freagairt ach thog e gu leòr cheistean annam mar neach òg a tha a’ faicinn mo dhachaigh san Eilean Sgitheanach ag atharrachadh. Gach turas a leugh mi an dàn seo chunnaic mi e bho shealladh eadar-dhealaichte. Bidh sinn uile a’ smaoineachadh air an dachaigh, ged a ’s e an t-àite a dh’iarramaid neo nach e, “Is thoiribh a chreids’ / Gum b’ e seo a bu dual / Mura b’ e a bu mhiann.”

English

This poem was included in Best Scottish Poems 2022. Best Scottish Poems is an online publication, consisting of 5 Gaelic poems chosen by a different editor each year, with comments by the editor and poets. It provides a personal overview of a year of Scottish poetry. The Gaelic editor in 2022 was Peigi MacVicar.

Editor’s notes:
‘Fàilte’ by Mary Montgomery invites us to think about ‘home’ – what is it, what did it used to be, what will it be, what’s missing, is it a place? With sharp, compressed and well-paced poetry I felt encouraged to ponder what breathes life into a place to make us call it home by following the poet’s thoughts at every step. I don’t know if I got any answers, but it certainly raised a few questions in me as a young person from Skye noticing the changes that are emerging at home. Every time I read this poem, I could see it from a different perspective – whether it’s how we’d desire it to be or not, home is something we all think about, “Is thoiribh a chreids’ / Gum b’ e seo a bu dual / Mura b’ e a bu mhiann.”

Author’s notes:
The poem scrapes at the surface of at least one layer of the perceptions surrounding the notion of “Homecoming” to a modern Scotland, more especially to a modern Gaidhealtachd. Even that surface abrasion, footfall erosion, causes the supposed sustaining veins beneath to erupt, perhaps involuntarily, causing damage, further damage. This suggests the vulnerability and fragility of what might otherwise be supposed to be sturdy rooting, secure grounding. The marks left by gruelling groundwork, distorting working hands to appear claw-like and pincered, are hardly justified, it would seem, by the fact that returnees and homecomers feel they may belong sufficiently to take for granted the work these hands were once required to do.
It might be that clutching at foreign lore in some way appeases the apparent lack of reward evident in what remains to be seen in and on the landscape, by removing it at least one step, one layer, from the question : is this really what home signifies?