Tag Archives: poetry

William

Posted on by
Reply

My son Will is off to Yorkhill childrens hospital for an operation today. It is only a small, fairly routine thing, and he seems remarkably unconcerned. he has memories of the hospital from previous visits, and to him, it is something of a wonderland of play equipment and friendly staff. He knows that kids are transfered to the operating theatre in electric cars- that they drive themselves!

But sending your lad off to be under the knife- this is hard.

He left with Michaela and his granddad whilst I went off to work..

I walk away

I walk away
And a backwards glance
Sees my son watching me
Watching me leave
Suddenly so vulnerable
So small in his clothes
Shrinking into the folds of his shirt

And my heart stops for a moment
A flashbulb vision hits my minds eye
Of him riding a bicycle
Down a street full of hidden dangers
Out of earshot
But not yet out of sight
Undefended
Needing me
But not knowing it

Like the flicker of a fragile vein
In soft translucent skin
His humanity seems
Improbable
Incredible

And needing the application
Of an armoured shell
To keep out
Shooting stars
Or the odd stray arrow

With a shudder the moment passes
And I offer up a prayer
To keep the wolves
Far from our door
While I head out to slay my days supply of dragons
At work.

17.8.07

Peregrinatio

Posted on by
2

Around the coastline of my adopted county of Argyll are places rich in the folklore of the Celtic sailor-saints. For them, voyaging was about mission. It was the very stuff of faith and life. It was the living embodiment of trusting in the living God.

Tides ebbed and flowed to His ordinance.

Storms came to test and to admonish.

The journey was blessed only by His provision

But arrival was never certain.

One of the accepted practices of these monks seems to have been Peregrinatio, or ‘Holy voyaging’, which in practice meant to get in a boat, and simply to set sail. No destination planned, simply trusting to tide, wind and God. The destination of such a voyage was not geographical, but rather spiritual. The goal was to arrive at ones ‘place of resurrection.’ Arriving at journey’s end inevitably meant an actual physical place also however- and it is these places that still hold the memory of these voyages in Argyll- in the place names, the folk lore, and also in the marks and mounds in the earth out on exposed headlands, or on tiny islands.

Just around the corner from me is Holy Loch (the site in more recent years of an American nuclear submarine base!) At the head of the Loch is the village of St Mun, named after the saint for whom this place was his resurrection.

St Brendan

Lord stain me with salt

Brine me with the badge of the deep sea sailor

I have spent too long

On concrete ground.

If hope raises up these tattered sails

Will you send for me

A fair and steady wind?

For Neil

Posted on by
Reply

You would have liked this
I was listening to Bert Jansch
Picking out an opening riff
Beautiful and bell-like
And it made me think of you
My wounded friend
It was not a surprise
To find you with me
The shape of you
Is never far away

You would have loved this music
It would have rolled on you
Like poured oil
For a while
But then it would have drained
Into those corrugations
That life harrowed into your soul

And the simple beauty
Would have become something else
Something external
Something examined
Something measured
And as a consequence
Lost

It would have contributed
To the old
Reverse confidence trick
And leave you grasping for ownership
For evidence of your own
Worth
And creativity

Bert Jansch leaves me yearning too
For the simplicity of acoustic poetry
But like you
It has gone

And I feel your absence
Like the numbness
Of frostbite

Eileach an Naoimh

Posted on by
4

I have just been checking out some photos of a trip I took with some friends to the Garvellachs in May.

The Garvellachs are a tiny Archipelago of islands in the Inner Hebrides. They are uninhabited, and the only way of getting to them is by boat charter.

The islands are absolutely beautiful. Anyone who has ever visited and explored small islands like these will know that they are all different- and that being within their confined boundaries can be a very expansive experience. A chance to be at peace, to pray, worship, think, talk, sit around campfires, and seek shelter in caves.

The Garvellachs offer something else however. On one of the islands (Eileach an Naoimh) is an almost complete monastery dating back to the time of St Columba. Some say that this was the site that Columba used as his own place of rest from the busyness of Iona- the famed Hinba.

We spent three days full of gales, sunshine, and sunsets- sometimes scrambling over cliffs, sometimes huddled in ancient buildings, or in the privacy of our tiny tents.

It was a time of blessing- and so I offer here some photos, and another poem…

Eileach an Naoimh

Hard place
Stones ring and rattle
Upon this hollow ground

Soft place
Pillowing the prayers
Of a thousand saints
In the skein
Of tender years

Thin place
Between this wonderful world
And the next

Mysterious
Like the purple veins
Of a pregnant woman
Singing in those parts of us
We used to call
Souls

May 2008

The Garvellachs, Inner Hebrides

The view from our window at night…

Posted on by
Reply

Firth of Clyde

Broad estuary
Flowing coal black
Flecked with the streetlight
Lines of amber combed out by the current
Moving
Yet standing still

The Clyde is running clean now
Rich in all manner of living things
Yet somehow
Sterile

The fresh paint
On a mothballed dockyard crane
Is masking memories
Of an age of smoke and steam
Now gone

No more slap of paddles
Or thump of ships moving in the night
No more bulging holds
Of empire plunder
No more sugar, no more spice

A thousand ships have carried off the morning tide
Past Bute and beyond the Cumbraes
Beckoned on by Paddies Milestone
Now drowned by Sirens on some distant shore

Just flotsam
Of this mighty River

Chris Goan

20.12.06

In appreciation of Calmac

Posted on by
Reply

We are away on holiday next week, and always, this brings to mind ferry journeys to Hebridean islands…

Calmac. A familiar, sometimes infuriating old friend.

This year we are going to France. We might well regret this. Usually, every other place is measured against the beauty of a soft Hebridean evening, and the peace this always brings to the soul.

So here is a poem that captures some of these thoughts.

Caledonian MacBrayne.

In this world of wide-eyed wonders
I have loved to linger at those places
Off the beaten track
Places where haste seems waste
And tide and time waits for everyone
Courtesy of Calmac.

Over the soft morning air comes the murmur of machines
Somehow disconnected from the passage of ship
Over sea.

Diesel smokes the breeze, but above it all
The crews bacon tempts even the vegetarian
Romance was never
So gloriously utilitarian

And after the commercial break to my reverie forced by ticket collection,
We set out into the loch
And past the blur of portholes poorly painted
Some hidden hand pulls a curtain of colours

Brown changes blue green
Light hits the perfect prisms
Of the dancing waves
Leaping and flashing
Lapping and splashing rainbows in every direction

Out beyond the headland
We meet head on a new movement
Blown in from the wide ocean

And salt seeps into Scottish steel
Water washing streaks of rust to remind us of our journey
From riverbank
To breakers yard

Sea holds us now, above the deep darkness
Beneath the keel.