Veesions frae a Heilan Burn, 1986
Warm June, the Simmer Solstice in Glen Gairn
Inbye a fermer’s caravan, bairns sleep
The Day’s bin theirs, dookin in peaty puils
The Nicht is mine, I steer tae hear tods creep
A stride awa, the burn rins skinklin bye
Sauchs boo their branches, murners swypin graves
I wyde intae the watter, skirts held heich
An dowp upon a steen, amid the waves
This night in Tomnaverie doon the Dee
The Druid stanes haud vigil like masel
Lippenin tae derkness, seelences an souns
The sweesh, the sweel, o watter, steeked harebell
A swippert troot kerplunks ooto a puil
The splash in meenlicht mirrors starnies glent
The meen’s fite, eildritch face luiks waesome doon
Myndin o ferlies doon the years She’s kent.
The Gregorach o Dalfad frae the Black Brig
Left fur Culloden. Oot o twenty fower
Sax men survived, cam back tae birssled hames,
Glen Gairn Gaels, wracked bi Drumossie Moor
An nae a single myowt did the meen gie
Ower Flodden, ower the Gordons on the Kwai
Ower Mary Queen o Scots aneth the Aixe
Ower Vikin warssles on the isle o Skye
The watter rinnin by gurgles an skirps
A hoolet skreichs, bean-nighe boos in state
Washin the cloots o Gregorach lang deid
The Past’s awa, sicht thochts evaporate
This is the meen that watched Van Gogh gae gyte
The meen abune the clachan o Chagall
The meen that Rousseau pentit ower his cyard
The meen that wis wud Nero’s funeral pall
The branches o the birches fusper saft
Like widlan luvers sharin secrets swete
A wyver knits her moosewabs in the derk
A futterat pammers by on fleein feet
The flooers are blin, their heids are hingin doon
The ghaistly ivy lowses fleein bats
The burnie’s straikt wi siller in her hair
The troots lowp heich as sequined acrobats
Warm June, the Simmer Solstice in Glen Gairn
Inbye a fermer’s caravan, bairns sleep
The Day’s bin theirs, dookin in peaty puils
The Nicht is mine, her glamourie rins deep
About this poem
This poem was chosen by Thomas Clark as part of the Scottish Poetry Library’s ‘Champions’ project, a guest curatorship programme to help extend our national reach.
Thomas Clark says, ‘Oor theme is ‘Vision’, an if language is a wey o seein the warld, there’s naebody maks thon ony plainer than Sheena Blackhall. Is a ‘futterat’ actually jist a common ferret? Dae ‘sparkling’ an ‘skinklin’ really mean the exact same thing? The act o seein, an describin whit is seen, is a transformative yin, kythin the mither tongue o the minority as somethin mair than either medium or message. Blackhall’s rich northern Scots middens awthegither the intermediary o English, an cairries its imagery vieve frae the ee straicht through tae the hert.’
