Among my favorite O'Driscoll poems is this elegy for a wonderful Orkney poet, George Mackay Brown:
LIFE CYCLEAnd this one, especially poignant now:
in memory of George Mackay Brown
January. Wind bellows. Stars hiss like smithy sparks.
The moon a snowball frozen in mid-flight.
George is rocking on his fireside chair.
February. The sea loud at the end of the street.
Ferries cancelled. Snowdrops seem through dampness.
George is sitting down to mutton broth.
March. Oystercatcher piping. Early tat tie planting.
Gull-protected fishing boats wary of the equinoctial gales.
George is tired by now of his captivity.
April. Cloud boulders roll back from the Easter sun.
The tinker horse, a cuckoo, in the farmer's field.
George is taking the spring air on Brinkie's Brae.
May. Scissors-tailed swallows cut the tape, declare summer open.
A stray daddy-long-legs, unsteady on its feet as a new foal.
George is sampling home-brew from his vat.
June. Butterfly wings like ornamental shutters. Day scorches
down to diamonds, rubies before being lost at sea.
George is picnicking with friends on Rackwich beach.
July. Another wide-eyed sun. Its gold slick pours like oil
on the untroubled waves. Shoppers dab brows as they gossip.
George is drafting poems in a bottle-green shade.
August. Pudgy bees in romper suits suckled by flowers.
Well water rationed. Trout gills barely splashed.
George is hiding from the tourists' knock.
September. A brace of wrapped haddocks on the doorstep.
Mushrooms, snapped off under grass tufts, melt in the pan.
George is stocking up his shed with coal and peat.
October. Porridge and clapshot weather. Swan arrivals, divers.
Sun hangs, a smoking ham, suspended in the misty air.
George is ordering a hot dram at the pub.
November. Rain shaken out slantwise like salt. Hail pebbles
flung against the window to announce winter's return.
George is adding a wool layer to his clothes.
December. Three strangers, bearing gifts, enquire the way
to byre and bairn. A brightness absent from the map of stars.
George's craft is grounded among kirkyard rocks.
NOCTURNE
Time for sleep. Time for nightcap of grave music,
a dark nocturne, a late quartet, a parting song,
bequeathed by the great dead in perpetuity.
I catch a glance sometimes of my own dead at the window,
those whose traits I share: thin as moths, as matchsticks,
they stare into the haven of the warm room, eyes ablaze.
It is Sunday a lifetime ago. A woman in a now-demolished house
sings Michael, Row the Boat Ashore as she sets down the bucket
with its smooth folds of drinking water . . .
The steadfast harvest moon out there, entangled in the willow's
stringy hair, directs me home like T'ao Ch'ien: A caged bird
pines for its first forest, a salmon thirsts for its stream.
"The steadfast harvest moon out there, entangled in the willow's
ReplyDeletestringy hair, directs me home like T'ao Ch'ien: A caged bird
pines for its first forest, a salmon thirsts for its stream."
not to sound 'stupid" (as though sounding 'stupid' ever stopped me)
am at about 20 mins ago lying in bed reading in chapter nine of Odier's book I was suddenly struck by the last lines of his poem AND that Odier writes about the (way of) Tao) in section The Preparation For Meditation thusly (page 173):
"The hours favorable for meditation are related to the inspirations and
experations of the universe, which is comparable to a human body. The day is divided into two parts; the first, the night, which is Yin (feminine), and the second, the day, which is Yang (masculine). The time of inspiration corresponds to Yang, the, the day, and the time of expiration to Yin, the night."
and, as I recall, T'ao Ch'ien was a reclusive, hermit Chinese poet, artist
who ALSO would know what this poet knows...
or doesn't know and writes poems (and paints "landscapes") towards...
and as that bird and as that fish.... the movement towards "center" where
purity resides ? or is it that all embracing emptiness which surrounds this silliness ?
i also feel this guy "George" s need for an "hot dram" while putting on another layer of clothes AND
hiding from the "tourists' knock"
then there is (included" "the rocks" AND that Goddess (of the night) with
"the willow's stringy hair"
for those yet "here" this is a nice article about him / his work:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.poetryinternationalweb.net/pi/site/poet/item/11728/30/Dennis-ODriscoll