Anne Murray, Jila Peacock and Hafez

Gracenotes

INHERITANCE

I have inherited my mother's scarves

Autumn angora, winter wool

crisp cotton for spring;

silk for sad days like funerals, whatever the season.

She felt uncomfortable if there was no scarf.

At Rodin sculptures in the Burrell, she'd pause

and loudly tut not even a scarf around her neck.

When in town on separate jaunts,

I'd find her at the midday mass,

spot her immediately, her scarf

drawn up over her head, veil-like.

She'd nod as I joined her for the final hymn,

frown for a moment at my bare head

then smile in approval at my covered neck.

I take my time choosing my scarf, stroking

silver-flecked blues, warm reds, cool greens

noting that there are no beige.

It may be a difficult day ahead

but no matter. I'm not afraid

to stick my neck out

wearing any one of her scarves.

Anne Murray

Anne Murray reads at the Cornerstone - photo by Morelle Smith

Jila Peacock translates Hafez and shows her illustrations of his words

 

Rise up wine giver and offer the cup

for love at first so simple is now beset with trouble

even as sighs rising from the tangle of perfumed curls

suffuse our hearts with rapture.

Here am I revelling in the midst of life

when every moment the camel bells cry out

‘Pack your goods and chattels!’

Redden the prayer rug with wine

if the Magian elder tells you

For seekers know the map and methods of the Way.

In night’s black terror amid the fearful waves and whirlpools

How may those wayfarers of the shore fathom my despair?

My whole life’s yield is ending in shame through my conceit.

How long can the mystery we all seek remain hidden?

If this is the presence you seek Hafez, be bold

Abandon the world, let it go:

Then face your heart’s desire.

Translated by Jila Peacock

Jila Peacock shows her illustrations at the Cornerstone- photo by Mike Knowles

 

Poems and Angels by Tessa Ransford

Poems & Angels

ISBN 9780955289668

£5.00

These twenty-four poems represent Tessa Ransford’s latest publication in pamphlet form. The idea for this selection, published under her wisdomfield imprint and typeset by Textualities, grew out of conversations between the poet and the visual artist Jila Peacock and their shared interest in the idea of angels, and has been specially produced for a reading at Rosslyn Chapel in August 2011.

In this selection, the angelic is not necessarily understood in terms of the heavenly realm where ‘pure contingent spirits’ are traditionally represented as playing harps and singing hosannas… Indeed, for the greater part, the angelic is as much an aspect of this worldly realm as of the heavenly – though there is no strict demarcation – and sometimes it is expressed only implicitly. For Ransford, the angelic message can just as readily manifest itself in the wonder of cowrie shells once collected by a grandson on the beach at North Berwick, in the awful beauty of the ‘lightest snow’ that falls over Tintern Abbey, in Scottish autumn sunlight that transforms wet leaves to silver and dry leaves to gold, as it can in the icons of the Russian Orthodox tradition, in the minaret where flames the ‘one true thought’, and in the quivering and quaking reeds that miraculously withstand the force of desert storms.

This most attractively made pamphlet comes with its own band of angels in the form of Jila Peacock’s ‘heads’ that adorn the front and back covers. These heads have a timeless quality, and like angels are only partly scrutable. They are suggestive of ancient Ethiopian cave paintings, but can just as easily be read as examples of modern hieroglyphs – the ‘emoticon’ that some attach to txt msgs.

Michael Lister

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

More Poems Read at St John's

THE GOLDEN THREAD OF POETRY

poetry that connects and transforms

poetry on a different level

Tessa Ransford and friends: seventeen poets from various parts of Scotland took part in a series of readings at St John’s Church at the west end of Princes Street in Edinburgh, as part of its Festival of Spirituality, during the Festival of 2010.

On these two posts you will find poems written by the performers at the Golden Thread.

The other pages will give information about the poets, feedback about the performances, and related photographs and artwork.

 

‘AN ANGEL DISTURBS THE WATERS’*

The Angel dipped his feet in the pool.

Heavy-limbed, eyes red and bleary,

Dry-mouthed, dusty-winged,

Heartsick and weary.

The woman looked up at the stained glass head.

‘An Angel disturbs the waters’ she read.

What is the point? So much good to do here

So much evil to undo, which is worse,

And all this in the service of others.

He found it hard not to curse.

What is the point? What message is here?

Why is he doing that? It really isn’t clear.

The Angel sighed; yet still he trusted.

He leaned his head upon his hand.

‘I am just part of some great design

I have no need to understand.’

Then following the wave of pale blue pieces

Created by the Angel’s sigh,

She saw the little ship caught for so long in the Doldrums

Fill out its sails, and heard the grateful sailor cry.

*title taken from a stained glass panel in Trinity Church, Boston, Mass.

Anne Murray

Rinansay

Sheep and kirk,

croft and lighthouse,

wreck on treacherous reef;

green, gold, grey,

crumbling stone, lichen-

covered – every inch

could have been touched

by hand, hoof or gull’s

stick leg. Dig and dig,

find new meaning in

layers of soil, of

genealogy.

Re-invent

this subtle, parallel

place, that makes north

true, possible, outlined,

like a ghost’s drawn breath

Pam Beasant

Nightingale

Roaming the dawn garden to gather flowers,

I heard the cry of a nightingale.

Forlorn like me he loved the rose,

And in that mournful trill surged all his grief.

I wandered in the garden’s timeless moment,

Balancing the plight of rose and bird.

For the rose is the heart of beauty,

And the nightingale, beauty’s slave;

The first may show no favour,

The second seeks no change.

So stirring was his passionate song

That I was moved beyond endurance;

For endless roses flower each day,

Yet no man plucks a single bloom

Without the risk of thorn.

O Hafez, seek no gain from the orbit of this wheel,

It has a thousand pitfalls and no concern for you.

Jila Peacock

baby

a crazy alchemy

of blood and bone

a mangrove root

infused

with something -

a dash of spirit

and I am drawn

like universal

man

lines from my arms

and hands

but

too impatient

too early arrived

tubed and fed

I come

- bang -

crashing down

- there is

soil in those

drugs

Rosie Alexander

the gospel ship

there is stillness

the sea a mirror

for the reflection

of cold shores

only the boat

interrupts

the oar dipped

silence

the men lean

into the stroke

the women hold

bibles in their

hands and stare

out to the vessel

moored in the sound

they are a people

adrift

their church split

and broken

repossessed

their chance

for prayer

arrives

on erratic tides

a gospel ship

and their voices

rise out across

white sands

crofts thatched

with smoke

out over the

empty lazybeds

the grazing

backs of beasts

the people are

singing

god’s voice

upon the waters

Morgan Downie