In the Moor

One day as I sat quietly,

I saw the red road

rising from the blue moor

and disappearing without trace.

Who will take the road

repaying life from blood

to the top of the far shoulder

beyond the pale glen of the word.

(Below, the sea was a witness

with its faint mocking laughter –

pathless and wordless,

level its surface and song).

But I wanted the road

that will perhaps break the heart,

and jauntily I set off,

seeing the dust and soil,

kissing the dirt in my hand –

footsteps of bards long gone.

And a truth dawned on me

amidst the stillness of words –

poetry isn’t saying but being.

from Eileanan/Islands 1980

Islands

Islands rise from the sea,

their foundations hidden

in ancient experiences.

Islands are in and out of time,

guides for the wanderer,

or submerged in time long gone.

Some are well established,

high and dark in the flood.

No storm will affect their well-formed front.

Some in lava and sulphurous grief,

sea children of torn heart.

And others, icebergs, coldly moving in the water.

Some will stand silent,

lonely – inwardly as rock –

unassuming in the heat of the day.

And there is an island in the dusk,

assured, dark, and repelling,

its foundations in a fading time.

And this island in the sunset,

island watching another island.

You decide your own form.

From Eileanan/Islands, 1980

My Village Tonight

You are my village tonight,

remarkable your lights,

warm glow in the moor’s bleakness.

High above Shore Street

your other streets rise –

streets like a soft carpet –

and my hands will feel your paths

and my heart your heart.

Woodland and tree between the ways,

they will rise on the summits

and the knolls will be soft with moss

and the moss with dew.

You are the resplendent village,

little village by the wave,

secret village of my love,

tidal village and earth village,

village of the soft breasts,

village that will ease from self

and keep us folded as one.

When you lift your summer skirt

I will dance on your meadow,

and we will ascend the steps

up from the edge of the sea

until we are above the world,

and I see you lying below me

like a diamond in the kyle.

From Bailtean/Bailtean 1987

Between Law and Laughter

This poem unashamedly

walks the borderland between law and laughter,

growing like a tree in the light of the sun,

the leaves dance wherever they like,

the trunk grows where it must:

growing in the gap between law and freedom

aware that freedom is only:

those laws hidden from man.

And at last the conclusion

that a veil of unknowing covers our eyes.

from A’ Càradh an Rathaid/Mending the Road, 1988

Over the Threshold

 I go over the threshold

joyfully, elated

because I have seen a little gleam

of sunshine through the curtains.

I’m going on a journey,

doubtful, fearful,

because I’m not sure what’s ahead

or behind me

although I did see a golden gleam on the everlasting mountain.

O soft idols of the pillow!

I take my leave of you

joyfully, with doubt, with tears,

because I have been wrong for so long,

for the spendthrift days,

for the warm, deceitful bedcovers.

O, all-seeing heart!

O, deceiving, soiled heart

you are killed with sacrifices,

flayed by the knife of the morning!

But go over the threshold, don’t look back

to the warm, comfortable home,

or to the weathertight walls.

You are out in the light;

the mountains are shouting;

the marvellous wilderness is before you;

the eternal stars are spraying you with dew,

stretched out with the endless plain.

O marvel! O elation! O unending miracle!

From Saoghal Ùr/New World, 2003