Skip to content

Scottish Poetry Library

Register/Sign in
Shopping Bag Shopping Bag
Bringing people and poems together
  • Home
  • COVID-19
    • Re-Opening FAQ
  • Poetry
    • Poems
    • Poets
    • Our National Poet
    • Podcasts
    • Best Scottish Poems
    • Poetry and Mindfulness
    • Champions 2020
    • Posters
    • Publishers
  • Library
    • Become a borrower
    • Catalogue
    • Collections
    • Ask a librarian
    • Copyright enquiries
  • Learning
    • National Poetry Day 2019
    • National Poetry Day archive
    • SQA set texts
    • Learning resources
    • New to poetry?
    • Advice for poets
  • Events
    • Calendar
    • Exhibitions
    • Venue hire
    • List an event
  • Shop
    • National Poetry Day 2020
    • New Titles
    • Poetry Pamphlet Cards
    • Pocket Poets
    • Scottish Poetry
    • Help
  • About us
    • Our story
    • Our people
    • Our projects
    • Jobs
    • Our building
    • FAQs
    • Find us
  • Support us
    • Become a Friend
    • Donate
    • Easy Fundraising
  • Blog
Shopping BagShopping Bag
Ask a librarian
  • Home
  • >
  • Poetry
  • >
  • James Aitchison
  • >
  • Anthem
Donate Donate icon Ask a Librarian Ask a Librarian icon

Anthem

James Aitchison

In my disorder I shivered sweated, yawned
with fear and wrote some lines that went beyond
wit’s end. We travelled south. We hadn’t planned
on coming north again and buying this land
of little things where dwarf ferns unfurl their fronds,
newts and frogs come back to the garden pond,
a mistle thrush sings before the day has dawned.

Yes – any how-when-where by drop-dead chance.
And so I’ve been rehearsing final things
for years. I’ve bought my ashes in advance.
Until that harvesting
I’ll observe the natural ordinance
of fern and newt and frog and a thrush that sings
the anthem in my land of little things.


James Aitchison

From The Gates of Light (Colchester: Mica Press, 2016), reproduced by permission of the author

Tags:

Best Scottish Poems 2016 gardens writing poetry

About this poem

This poem was included in Best Scottish Poems 2016. Best Scottish Poems is an online publication, consisting of 20 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 editor in 2016 was Catherine Lockerbie.

Editor’s comment:

This was one of several collections in 2016 reflecting with great humanity and acceptance on the  strange business of growing old. Loving, personal, geographically precise, often rueful, James Aitchison’s poems accept the passing of time and the solace which still remains. This fourteen-line sonnet/anthem is a beautiful credo of the small resonant beauties of the natural world. A deeply consoling piece.

Author’s note:

Returning to Stirlingshire at the end of 2007 was less disturbing than moving to Gloucestershire in 2003. Since 2007, recurring subjects have included people and places in the locality, and I grouped these subjects in a notional sequence, ‘Carseland Diary’. ‘Anthem’, the last poem in the sequence but not the last to be written, expresses some of my current themes: ageing and mortality, states of mind, landscapes and the natural world. ‘Anthem’ also expresses my respect for language and poetic form.

Share this
Facebook
Twitter
Email

Learn more

Best Scottish Poems 2016

edited by Catherine Lockerbie
Find out more

James Aitchisonb.1938

James Aitchison is a Scottish-born writer who has published seven collections of poetry.
More about James Aitchison

Events

Discover poetry events at the Scottish Poetry Library and beyond.
Find forthcoming Events
  • Newsletter signup
  • Accessibility
  • Terms & Conditions
  • Privacy Policy
Scottish Poetry Library
5 Crichton's Close, Canongate
Edinburgh EH8 8DT
Tel: +44 (0)131 557 2876
© Scottish Poetry Library 2021.
The Scottish Poetry Library is a registered charity (No. SCO23311).
City of Edinburgh logo Green Arts Initiative logo Creative Scotland logo
By leaves we live

The Scottish Poetry Library is staffed weekdays from 10am – 2pm and is providing a limited service including postal loans and Click & Collect. For details, click COVID-19 in the menu bar above. Dismiss