chan eil mi nad aghaidh
1
chan eil mi nad aghaidh a thaistealair ghil
tha thu ruith tro mo chuislean mar aran mo bhith
chan eil mise an aghaidh do mheuran a’ slìobadh nan clach
do theanga mar theine a’ tionndadh nam fòd
chan eil mi an aghaidh do shùil a bhith suaineadh
nan teagamh trom chlaigeann, trom
chliabh, trom chruth
’s ged a shìneadh tu gu dà cheann na sìorraidheachd
abairteachd rag d’ iarrtais airson ciall, ciall, ciall
’s ged nach freagair mi le cinnt thu,
fàilte, fàilte, fàilt’ ort
2
an t-adhbhar a th’ aig deigh airson seudachd a chrochadh
air gach craobh is an liathachd gus laighe air m’ aois
is an t-adhbhar dhan a’ chuan a bhith ’g at is a’ seacadh is
an t-achbhar dhomh a bhith mar eathar bheag a’ bocail
eadar north utsire ’s south utsire flinne bog a’ tionndadh
chun nam bleideagan cruaidhe ’s mi an dòchas nach tig
an reothadh cuain nas fhaisge gus nach faicear na
mathain bhàn air bhàrr an raoin reòthta ’s an acras
na bheuc deudach no fodham na cearbain
mar fheannagan fairge gam fheitheamh
3
ann an tionndadh na grèìne chì mi ann a shin thu
chì mi thu taobh thall an sgàthain
’s cha toir thu cobhair dhomh
is chì mi ann a shin thu mar gum b’ ann a’ feitheamh,
a mhathain ghil, a chearbain nad shàmhchair
Translations of this Poem
i'm not against you
Translator: Aonghas MacNeacail
1
i’m not against you white traveller
you flow through my veins like the bread of my life
i am not against your fingers stroking the stones
your tongue like fire turning the peat turfs
i am not against your eye entwining
uncertainties through my head, through my
ribs, my form
and though you’d stretch to the two ends of eternity
the stubborn assertion of your demands for sense, sense, sense
and though i won’t answer you with confidence,
welcome, welcome, welcome
2
the reason ice suspends jewellery
on every tree while hoar sets to lie on my age
and the reason oceans swell and shrink and
the reason i am like a small skiff bucking
between north utsire and south utsire soft sleet turning
into hard flakes while i hope there’ll be no
freezing ocean any closer good not to see the
white bears ranging the frozen expanses, their hunger
a fanged roar or beneath me the sharks
like ocean crows awaiting
3
in the turning of the sun i see you there
i see you beyond the mirror
and you don’t come to help me
and i see you there as if waiting
for the white bear, the shark in your silence
About this poem
This poem was included in Best Scottish Poems 2012. 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 editors in 2012 were Zoë Strachan and Louise Welsh.
Editors’ comment:
To be not against someone is not necessarily to be for them. The narrator bids the white traveller ‘fàilte, fàilte, fàilt’ ort’, ‘Welcome, welcome, welcome’, but what else can he do? Not even poets can overwhelm nature, but they can set their face into the wind and greet the oncoming shore with determination and fear.
Author’s note:
Sometimes a poem is precipitated by a word, a barely articulated thought even, an image recalled, an intriguing turn of phrase heard or imagined. While the subject-matter may offer decree, or at least influence, the direction a poem will take, there are times when it seems more apposite to say that ‘I write in order to find out what I have to say’: let the sense of it appear in its own way, shape and time.
The starting point for this one, as I recall, was an uncertain fall of snow, and recollections of more extreme weathers. I would, personally, read a preoccupation with the alienating nature of contemporary politics into the dissonances being met with an urge toward resistance by the voice. I also sense an element of continuing contention with the narrow theology that pervaded my childhood, which I’d like to think had been safely put to rest.
And, much as I would rather not admit it, there is a metaphoric contemplation of mortality threaded into the arctic imagery which colours the poem. And, if the poem has achieved its objective, it will be acknowledged that white, no mere colour, is itself an entire spectrum.
