With Many Thanks

We would like to thank all of the Golden Thread poets for reading at St. John's during the last 3 Edinburgh Festivals and all of you who came along to listen. Also St John's Church and the Cornerstone Bookshop for providing such superb venues and to those who generously sponsored the readings - without your help, they would not have been possible. 

This site too, would not have existed without your contributions. Many thanks for all the wonderful and inspiring poems and images.

This will be the last posting on the blog, but it will of course, still be available to view, reference, and link to. 

Two Quintas from Spain

Silent -

the land lies under sunlight -

spread yellow earth, red earth,

swept in tender circles round the olive trees

as if the sun’s broom was at work

Silent -

*

 

his blue eyes look out into distance -

olive trees in rows as regular as needlework

sweeping down the slopes -

dark green stitching

against dust-coloured earth.

his blue eyes...

Morelle Smith(words and images)

From the Cornerstone Readings

A Blackness

As clear as night

wings like ink

drawn in non-flight;

more positive than anything

is that Rook on the rooftop opposite.

Its wide-nosed beak

scans feathers

for insects or dirt,

coat clean and brilliantine,

upstaging the Jackdaw

hidden in slate—

charcoal

indistinct

like a so-called Eskimo

wrapped in sealskin

or centuries of a misconceived othering.

*

Rook really took the biscuit, though;

all the colours swam into him,

absorbed their differences

to nothing,

a negative-positive

to outshine the Sun,

a blackness that turns day

and night

back to light.

Nalini Paul

 

Nalini Paul

***

Chrys Salt's tribute to Adrian Mitchell -

With Adrian at the Peace Festival

if you saw him running it was because he’d spotted truth in the crowd and was chasing it if you saw him smiling it was at a good deed waving from a balcony if you saw him jumping it was in a playground with all the other daft kids on the block raising anarchy if you heard him singing it was girls and boys come out to play if you saw him laughing he was laughing he was really laughing if you saw him waving it was to say HELLO come in and join the feast of the human race if you saw him writing it was a love letter to the world on the day of its crucifixion if you saw him dancing it was to a Beatles tune about giving peace a chance and waiting for that moment to arrive

Chrys Salt

***

BUS PASS

I waited anxiously at the bus stop.

Two old ladies behind me

and a younger woman with a child

behind them formed the queue.

And when the bus arrived I panicked.

I encouraged the elderly ladies on first

then I motioned to the young woman,

discretely falling in behind her.

I wanted no association with these

old women – for we were leagues apart –

the mother and child much preferred

with my bus pass sweating in my palm.

I dreaded the bus driver’s eyes

as I dreaded the pad for the pass.

I felt sure he would question my age

as I felt sure I would fumble the pass.

All things pass, of course. It happened

without a word or the faintest of fumbles,

my pointless exasperation grounded in the vanity

of an uneasy, newly retired, senior citizen.

James Aitken

***

Geneva, August 2010 (from Gold Tracks, Fallen Fruit)

the wild sail of the water fountain

flaps a sheet of light across the Lac Léman -

from the cathedral bell-tower

it looks like a thread of torn lace

round the city’s wrist

Geneva rooftops (photo Morelle Smith)

 Scotland, East Coast, August 2012

passing through a narrow tunnel

that winds between the banks of sand –

no warning - the flat sea has spilled over the horizon -

it’s as if the dunes first protected you

then pushed you out

dunes, sea (photo by Morelle Smith)

Morelle Smith

Water, Another Jetty

The boat is like a scooped out wooden shell

a crab once lived in.

It follows an oblique path to the shore.

A thin rope ties it to the wooden jetty.

The sun shines, out of reach of clouds.

The beach is pebbles, grey and rounded,

warm to the touch.

The sun has the whole estuary to itself,

fingers water, turns stones inside out,

revealing their true colours

Words and images - Morelle Smith

Two Watery Quintas - River, Sea and Rain

The broken jetty

and the clouds over the water -

swag bags of rain slung

over shoulders, slate grey clouds

that don’t look back.

 

The ripples on the water

have a slick look to them

the reflection of the high bridge -

where the trains still pass -

near-perfect

Poems and images - Morelle Smith

That Season Just Before Spring

This morning it's misty, the crows caw and a chaffinch was piping, the snow shrinks and a dull green, a thin, light-starved, emaciated mat, greenish brown, is revealed. The snow, frozen to clumps of grey ice, forms slippery hillocks, wet, half melted, treacherous as the speeding mind, desperate as a weapon, to be off.

I am not going to follow this fire or this blade, I am tempering, slowing, I will shoulder an axe, I will lean on a saw, into the patterns of wood, cut a floury path through the branches, smell the resin, listen to the crunch of my boots on the faltering ice. I will gather sticks, my armour against time and the drying of laundry and hopes, remembering smells of dried pine, and warm cotton, the first flowers ripe as coconuts, yellow as corn.

The birds throw themselves from one tree to another, piping and growling and tripping over the twigs and the garden table, the tree-trunks and the matting and drooping of last summer's flowers.

Sap is pushing its way through the trees and buds are already glowing with colour.

…

The light has stayed so long, and changed everything. The earth scent, the sun going down at a different point in the sky. So the light makes quite different patterns of shade – shadows appear in unexpected places. Sunlight too, carries a rush bag in its arms, and empties it all over the garden, among the fir twigs and larch bark the colour of rust, and thick, like lumps of papier maché.

Morelle Smith

Readings and Rounds

Sandy Hutchison,

Morelle Smith, and

Lesley Harrison [below]

read at St. John's church

cafe.

Below, Joe Proskauer [right] teaches the audience a new round, helped by Roland Stiven

Followed by William Hershaw's appropriately titled Gowden Thrieds

Gowden Threids

An auld carl chappit on our door,

“Yearly, I cairry this kist:

green silk tae sow

a lown coat for spring,

bricht cramson cloth -

a dress tae dance at Lammas,

blae yarn tae knit

a scarf frae autumn’s souch,

white wool at Yuill

tae hap a shawl or shroud.

Thir gowden threids'

tae stitch the seasouns roun

William Hershaw

Two Quintas for the summer solstice, Hungary and Bulgaria

Elizabeth Empress of Austria, was married to the Austrian Emperor Franz Joseph. Too much of a private person to enjoy court life she stayed away as much as possible. She had a fondness for Hungary and spoke the language fluently. She was influential in the re-establishment of the Hungarian constitution which led to the Austrian Empire becoming the Dual Monarchy of Austria-Hungary. Clearly her feelings for the Hungarian people were reciprocated, as an area in Budapest, Erzsebetvaros [Elizabethville], part of the old Jewish quarter, has been named after her.

20/6/11 - Budapest

The streets in Erzsebetvaros

have a familiar echo -

monochrome dipped in fierce sunlight -

footsteps, a songbird -

all feels like home

21/6/11 - Neseber, Bulgaria

it gets dark so quickly -

the sun plunges to its next assignment

where it has a pact today

with a meridian, before it shifts its angle,

and begins to turn away

Beltane - The Fire

I put you – at the top of the tree,

here, where the gold tangles

with hair and bruised skin -

I pull you out of my heart

and feel the hot brand

tight as a hoop and round as the sun

jump in -

yellow blossom outside,

on the inside, this fire

that aims to consume me

'to my one desire'.

Morelle Smith

Poems for the Equinox

2 quintas

1)

at sundown

first the snow capped mountains

then the sky and sea

turn smoky pink -

people linger on the Esplanade

2)

The woman walks with crutches -

her donkey, close behind her

carries olive branches in his pannier

carries her pace, her rhythm -

the first drops of rain begin to fall

Light Flurry of Snow

Grey sky – of an even dullness

so it looks flat

as a well-painted tin plate.

Like winter again I say to the bus driver -

oh – the last flurry before spring he says

as if he was announcing the name

of a stop on the way -

even a destination -

a ticket for Last Flurry please -

if that's as far as you are going

though I'd really rather alight at Spring.

He has light blue, sky-keeper eyes.

Snow turns to sleet

as we ride on the tail-end

of Last Flurry.

Morelle Smith

St Brigit's Day - A Time of Renewal

St Brigit's day marks the first Quarter Day of the year, a time of the first stirrings and awakenings of new life. Perhaps each renewal is a time for looking back to what has formed us and for questioning who we are.

Identities

Are you the language that you speak

or the one your parents spoke,

the one you never learned?

Are you the land you live in now

or the one that lives inside their bones,

the one that they call home?

Are you the kind of fruit you eat,

that prospers in this soil?

Are you the stories that your parents feed you

before they disappear,

a film of moist silt in your memory?

Or are you more a conduit, a colour

and a shape, a lightning-flash

that you hand on to others?

Mixing chalk and water with imagination,

are you vivid with light,

and warm too – with light?

Names fade it seems,

tossed out with the rind of mandarins,

lemons and pomegranates -

while what you live of sun

and stars – remains.

Morelle Smith

The Cosmic Dance

Almost sunrise on the solstice, December 2010




Solstice eclipse snow contributed by Hazel Buchan Cameron
















This particular dance combined three acts in one - solstice, full Moon and eclipse.
Then there was a further act - another eclipse.

Joseph Proskauer says:>

It must be very rare indeed to have both an eclipse of the Moon near the start of Christmas, and an eclipse of the Sun near the close. It seems we are experiencing an unusual harmony of Earth, Moon, and Sun. "May human beings hear it."

Apparently, Joseph says, it is very rare that the moon-rhythms (phase and height of path) should coincide exactly on the solstice and it is even rarer that a total eclipse should also occur then as well (although eclipses do always occur on new and full Moons.) He says that, to the best of his knowledge, the last lunar eclipse on the solstice was 372 years ago.

The second eclipse, the partial solar eclipse - along with the new Moon - occurred around 8.50 am GMT on 4^th January 2011.

The powerful rhythms and alignments of the celestial bodies are reflected in our own lives, in our dreams and our waking experiences, and we will express them creatively in different ways. This particular filament of the Golden Thread did not manage to see either eclipse, as they were obscured by clouds, but just going out walking in the hills on those mornings was quite magical, especially on the solstice, when the ground was still covered in snow, and all the trees and plants had their individual coatings of frost.

The photographs are of sunrise on the solstice.

Photographs of Cairnholy © Joseph Proskauer

Two quintas:

22/12/10
Solstice full Moon
hides behind morning clouds -
at evening, edges behind buildings -
finally, on the dark deserted beach -
what took you so long? It says

4/1/11
the Sun on the horizon
behind boat-clouds
pulled by swift rowers -
shielding us perhaps
from the shadow on its face

Morelle Smith

sunrise and solar eclipse

Song for snow

Golden leaf on silver bough -– break

Branches under snow –- shake

A Siberian wind -- flakes

Drift deep below

Black cloud thunder mass -– glow

Of midday outline -– through

To the gleam and glimpse -– blue

Shadows on the hill

Dark and light together -- spill

With birds raucous as they -- fill

The glen and loch and -– will

Skein their way south

Winter now forms our world -– north

Spin the seasons – earth

Works her systems – death

with birth interdwelt

Glaciers may return or –melt

Ice or flood our future – dealt

All beneath Orion—held

As we marvel faithfully

Tessa Ransford (December 2010)

Note: The poem’s form is taken from Gaelic Pibroch music, and in this case the tradition for a ‘call to arms’. The last word in each line is emphasised and leads on in meaning to the next line. Three lines rhyme with the fourth last line of each verse leading onto the rhyme for the first line of the next. I have imitated this from a poem of Hamish Henderson’s called ‘Brosnachadh’.

Portentous

Cloaked in a curtain of cloud

the sun burns

through black fabric

glares like an old woman

in a shroud.

It hovers above us

as we sit in the moving bus,

trying to warm our cockles in winter

willing the sun to shed

her widow’s veil

and shine over our discontent.

Nalini Paul

The Season of Renewal

With snow already covering many parts of the country we are reminded that the winter solstice and the turning of the light is not far away. We felt this would be a good time to post some new poems celebrating aspects of seasonal and spiritual renewal.

Daffodils at Christmas. A painting by Ken Smyth. His website is HERE

Daffodils at Christmas

Gay as a blackbird’s beak

your daffodils unbud

and burst into frilled trumpets

this Christmas morning,

bringing a torch of freshness

to the season’s ritual,

reminding the heart’s cold bulb

of its green, forgotten centre.

Better to have left the corner bare

than focus this bright beam

on the chill comfort I have grown to.

Better not to dare

this incandescent flame

for fear its clear and unexpected shining

blinds me into love,

and, sweeter than sap, your gentleness

enters my bones

calling my roots to draw up joy again

Chrys Salt

The Cleir White Licht

Orange is a fairing

that's wi an aipple sib,

purpour's the Godbairn

wha's greetan in his crib,

gowden is the gift

the muin gies tae the airth,

sea blae's for a mither

trauchled by a birth,

pine green is for guid luck

and needles that dounpour,

siller is an angel

or a fish laid at the door,

ruid is for a hearth

that lowes like a kind hairt,

white is for the licht outside

that guides us tae our airt.

Willie Hershaw

POEMS IN RESPONSE TO TITLES OF OSSIAN-INSPIRED PAINTINGS

By Geoffrey MacEwan in the Scottish Poetry Library

Paintings sponsored by Callum Macdonald

commissioned by Tessa Ransford and James Coxson

for the new building for the Scottish Poetry Library which opened in 1999

The Landscape of the Golden Age

deer at sunrise climb the sgurr

above the golden valley

kings of the golden river

mountain oak, rowan, pine

where water cascades over

shield of shining granite

fertile glen, abundant sea

finest horses and cattle

great hounds at heel

a long dark or a long light

land for heroic people

bound in tribal feu

Totem and Taboo

my cup my shield my sword my field

my white-breasted woman

my son my clan my race my kin

my life my death my poem

The Warrior’s Premonition

when the wind blows from the north

when the tide is full in moonlight

when a door bangs in the dark

when a stranger crosses the path

when a heron flies downstream

when a kite cries through the mist

some death will surely follow

some blood be shed.

The Bone of Contention

See the huge white hound at the dark cave’s mouth

who will not leave though his master is dead -

the crone will bring a bone from the deer

his master slew the day he was slain by an erring

arrow from the bow of his brother

who loved the same russet-haired girl

Steeped in honour they all must die

for they cannot live with the shame -

poor loyal dog who remains to mourn

among old grey women and men.

The Hunter’s Moon

Gold torque on noble warrior

gilded path across the water

huge moon blood-red and hanging

low over timbered rafter

Hot summer on the moorland

lazy days in long grasses

flowers, dragonflies and swallows

agitated in pre-migration

Time to hunt but not for deer

time for music and lamentation

time for lust and procreation

time to seed, replenish the furrow

follow the heart, its ripe desire

The Beach of Exhausted Desire

the harp is playing, shadows falling

the highway of the sea is closing

weep no more, weep no more

leaves browning, bracken’s burning,

winter lulls the season’s fever

want no more, want no more

wind is keening, fiddles tuning

bring in fuel and build the fire

wake no more, wake no more

The Tomb of the Warrior

not marble mausoleum but simple cairn

not chambered labyrinth but narrow pit

too many bones

a gleaming brooch

his rusted sword and carnivorous teeth

Feasting and Song

Put on the ermine, don the plaid

skirl the pipes and batter the drum

dance and be merry

let whisky flow

it must be a wedding

youth is now

the calf has been killed

bread has been baked

fruit is gathered, juices spilled

grief turns to joy turns to joy to joy

for someone someday again somehow

Tessa Ransford

Angel on Mont Blanc by Jila Peacock

Winter Solstice

Night of little wind,

stillness breathing over fir trees

and the house -

turreted

with staircases and towers

and secret passages

and levels going up into the sky.

A stained-glass window

where the light is always on -

impossible fairy-tale castle

seen in moonlight.

Candle burning.

Light is turning

on the hoof of darkness

belly dark-turned to the south.

Seed of summer planted

in the hollow of the pine tree,

by the gate.

Ashen winter,

grave of secrets,

rabbits, birds

and other small creatures

who seem to come out in the open

only to die.

And the leaves of course,

lots of leaves.

It seemed so long an autumn.

But winter turns now

on the tide of night -

withdraws,

responding to some other call.

An inch or two,

scattered minutes, here and there,

the world grows – slowly -

out of darkness, into day.

Morelle Smith