to eyeball
yellow
light
between
spruces,
sprucing them up:
orange birch bolete (Leccinum versipelle)
hunting with
stomachs,
with eyes
at the margins
of aspen
and grassland:
speckled stipes
tufted, tubes
mouse-grey;
under the fell
where the short-
eared owls
weren’t, you
were
– but fly-et!
blewit (Lepista saeva)
near misled
by leaves
into missing it:
glutinous cap-top
with an unknown leaf of an
unknown tree glued on
and, under the clump,
blue legs,
tho’ it be
warm autumn
oyster fungus (Pleurotus ostreatus)
found in the
skull of a
stranded whale
reversing decay
on rotten
logs
turning mul-
tiple rumps
to the moon
small scallops
from a
bough
casseroled
in
bêchamel
dung roundhead (Stropharia semiglobata)
all
round
coming down
Cautley Spout,
so slen-
der &
pen-
dent
on
sheep
-shit:
golf
tees,
tiny
trees
rain-
washed
&
foot-
mashed,
hemi-
spheri-
cally
capped
& hued
by
falling
spores
Pelagic
Ἀθήνη / φήνῃ εἰδομένη [Ody., III.371–372]
the sea moves
like music,
knowing no
fixed point;
no true
pole star
that must be had
showing
*
wind
moves sea
into laced
swell;
crests
slice air,
foam,
and surge;
white lines
’f gulls streak,
strike, stroke
the breakers;
waves
roll
in s l o w
glass-
bead breakage,
with cullet
of spin-
-drift …
*
a cobalt-
blue eye
with a clear
pale iris
cold and
arresting,
‘without the good
of intellect …’
*
the world
and life,
one;
and the
ocean’s
maxim, that
a meaningless sign
is
useless:
yet gannet massing
show a herring-
shoal,
the whole sky
filled & whitened
by them;
the plunge
of feathers’
oiled sheen,
of diving
blades, as
massed bubbles
of milky wake
rise and
burst
before
their green
surfacing…
*
blue shadows
on blue
water;
the sky
wave-
blue;
light
gave them wings
to follow
glistening
waves
in a state
fulness
annulling space …
*
the wind’s song sung
through a gull’s
hollow bone;
“consciousness
is not a wave”
said Ruskin,
mind moving
over light, over air,
over water …
for David Connearn
The Inscriptions
for Carl Rakosi
for Anthilla
and for Archedike
Hediste and
Hegesilla
Kallipe,
Kleophonis,
Melo
(written sgraffito)
Mnesilla
Rhodopis
and Sime
who are
beautiful
&
forgotten
Window, Light Outside
to make
is to risk
making
a botch:
– ‘forgiveness,
horse!’,
that I hazard
anything,
abolishing
chance
by chancing
my arm,
not making
head
and/or
tail,
hand
fallen back,
nothing
made
through
courting incapacity;
instead,
assaying saying
the little
that one man
reden kann:
to speak
of a window,
light outside
falling in on
lime-washed walls,
eight lights
thrown
across the floor;
or of
seeing Myosotis,
water forget-me-not,
blue
by a
small
bridge,
water
flowing
away,
fleshy
stalks
fringing
banks
where the shade
of willow
and alder
is not
too deep;
or saying again
what
has been expressed:
as how,
in the south,
“trees’ leaves
turn with the year,
but only the oldest
fall …”:
this
not
the
‘appearance
of truth’
but
truth’s
appearance:
truth, which is
prefixed
by privation,
ἀ-
λήθεια,
dis-
covery;
in
brevity
to risk
obscurity,
seeing
meaning
in a
single
magpie
over
an
en-
filade
of
trees
in
early
morning,
September
sun,
white
&
black
alike
alight
in
sun’s bright
fire …
here
is no
concern
with ‘ornament’;
it is
enough
to have
an “earthen
jug,
self-
supporting,
a
thing”
set
in
space,
it-
self
itself,
giving
a shape
to the void
around it
as music
does
to silence;
a jug
tactile
as a
lemon,
as succinct
and un-
obscure
as a
Braque –
as a bowl
of fruit, a
guitar,
glasses
and a bottle
of wine, set
on a table,
readied
for
companionship,
outlined
in the room
by windowed
light;
all here
invites:
‘touch,
smell,
drink
and play …’
each thing seen
itself,
as
cats fucking,
mewing like
buzzards, the
male’s penis
studded
with pointed,
horny
spikes, a
barbed
Cupid’s arrow;
as White’s
wasp’s
eyes, “lunated
in a
crescent”…
clear
seeing,
each word
differing
as a leaf
from
its neighbour,
turning
in air, in
incessant
motion,
once
in an eye-
blink,
pale
underside
twisting
in tiny
breeze;
‘had they been
tougher,
harder,
more durable,
more valuable,
things
would be different’
each
word
in limited,
limiting clarity
showing
the World,
an
ideal,
inescapable,
variegated
variety;
to walk
into
the poem,
to see
sun on sea
through
the cloister
door-
way.
Reading Hölderlin on Orkney
… as people
are fond of presences, I have come to
see you, you Islands, and you,
you mouths of streams …
Friedrich Hölderlin, Die Wanderung
I
islanded:
and here, at a
burn’s mouth be-
tween hills
facing ocean, days
chasing days …
What a riddle
to pose,
here or any-
where, what
might be pure
of origin? (As if
that was, or
could be, of
moment, at
these moments, with
the drifting of
sleet, of birds,
whose wing
beats estab-
lish the only
measure …)
But a question, still,
that song schooled
by skylarks
might answer
if it met
the clear light
by the Burn
of Stourdale,
its water wind-
feathered and
light
as a kitti-
wake, blown
off a cliff
into ocean
II
wind on water, allegro
light on water, legato
wind on water, vivace:
and a window, open
to light
off the sea, from the sky
with, above, a roof
smoke blossoms from
and, outside, turf,
daisied
with hailstones,
where snow
holds the place
of shadow
III
under clouds,
peace; under
pieces of cloud
the sunlight
makes its way
up the slack of the hill,
over myrtle
and heather
that the Atlantic
dots with foam …
In an inshot of spray
the sea breathes
up the geo,
and the hill,
the cliff, looms;
cloud is cut
by its edge, a
near horizon,
and the air’s flecked
with fulmars,
their impure joy
the “consciousness
of necessity”, of
the world, ready-
to-hand and hard
to grasp …
As snow,
half-gleaming,
signifies, the light,
benevolent, is
reluctant to flower;
scattered to lucency
by salt in the air,
scattered to web,
to trace, to skein,
to haze …
IV
In Berriedale,
goldcrests, they say,
and woodsong
can be
within
hearing;
in this deep valley
what might not
be forgotten
in the shade
of woods, far
from the burn of light
V
On the Howes of Quoyawa, on
the Knap of Trowieglen, fish-
bone-widths of snow
silver in the sunlight:
to move, pathless, among rocks
and heather, aflame with
quiet fire; to trace
the course of streams,
to learn to tell
white hare
from white boulder,
the specific
names like morning breezes
– and their absence, too, cooling
as the un-named lochan’s
slaty water …
On the crags
by the Burn of the Kame,
the bare stones
of language:
under that dark light
no word
like ‘flower’
will flower …
here, twin slabs of rock,
and it clear that, once,
a rocking-
stone sat,
poised, local,
wavering
between the total
and the particular,
set wobbling
by the weight
of the immanent
moment,
by thought
rocked
as if settled
on water:
on a mountain
on a slope
on a hill
adrift
in un-
certain sea
without ebbtide
without oar
without rudder
VI
restless,
the burns,
the wind,
the tide;
lazier,
light
fades
into night,
into
cloud’s
radiant
haze
and tulli-
menting stars
… both buoyed and clever
but cross-grained, lop-
sided to manage: turning
round and round the man-
œuvre she was best at, little
and dancing, sea-tossed;
she seemed to find her head again –
though even a small change
in the disposition of her weight
produced violent changes
in her behaviour;
how immensely tall
everything looked
from my low station
in the coracle …
Pibroch
for Sorley Maclean
I am only that Job in feathers, a heron, myself
Hugh MacDiarmid, ‘Lament for the Great Music’
urlar
a heron landing
on top of sea-wrack
folding wings
attending what’s near
on stones of the ebb-shore
seeing slippery ocean
hearing sea swallowing
brine chafing pebbles
seeing cold water
listening to uproar
breaking on slabs
a restless sea
ath-ruith [thumb-variation / theme]
heron
on wrack
folding wings
attending
on an ebb-shore
seeing ocean
hearing sea
chafing pebbles
seeing water
hearing uproar
on slabs