Music, When Soft Voices Die - by
Rose leaves, when the rose is dead,
/ Are heap’d for the belovèd’s bed;
/ And so thy thoughts, when thou art gone,
/ Love itself…
memory
Here lies our land - by
Small folk playing our part.
/ ‘Come all ye’, the country says
/ You win me, who take me most to heart. …
Fife Child in the Fifties - by
They’ve long demolished the side-street by the Links
/ That set me journeying when I was six or so:
/ In my grandmother’s room…
Màthair - by
Bha sinn a’coimhead nan rionnag
mus do thionndaidh sinn a-steach leis na coin,
is thuirt thu gum bu mhithich dhut
Hedge Sparrows - by
You don’t see many hedges these days, and the hedges you do see
they’re not that thorny, it’s a shame, and when I say a hedge
I’m not talking about a row of twigs between two lines of rusty
barbed wire, or more likely just a big prairie where there were
whole cities of hedges…
‘My Belarus with cornflowers blooming . . .’ - by
My Belarus with cornflowers blooming,
/ my land of camomile!
/ I’m no ‘new Belarusian’ woman,
/ I cling to ‘older’ style.
/ Not by broad path, but…
from Song of Ocol - by
Tell me
/ My friend and comrade,
/ Do you remember
/ The night of uhuru
/ When the celebration drums throbbed
/ And men and women wept with joy
/ As…
On a Grey Morning - by
On a grey morning
/ I walk the streets downtown,
/ the fog cuts into my burning eyes,
/ it cuts into my throat,
/ and is cold…
كُلُّ شيء … - by
كلُّ شيءٍ في مكانِهِ
/ مِرآتُكِ
/ أحجارُكِ
/ آنيةُ الطيبِ
/ حنَّاءٌ جافٌّ لأجلِ عيدٍ سيأتي
/ مَقعَدٌ خالٍ،
/ قميصُ الصَّيفِ الماضي
/ رائِحَتُكِ فوق َ الوسادةِ
/ ما تَرَكَتْهُ شَفتاكِ
/ من طعمِ قُبلةِ اليومِ…
Caracas - by
The buildings are so high
/ nothing can be seen now of my childhood.
/ I’ve lost my patio with its lazy clouds
/ where the…
from Houses and People - by
Each spot each spot kindles an image…
/ the seashore the plain the top of a…
Coalend Hill Farm 1962 - by
I don’t remember the Beanley orra-man,
/ his boots down the lonnen black as a wet day, his caravan
/ under a butchered elm’s…