Five Poems

Written by Administrator

Five poems.

FIVE POEMS BY IAIN FINLAY MACLEOD.

JUNE 2009

ST. KILDA

A BOY LOOKS AT A DEAD BIRD

DRAGONFLY

TIDE

A WALK WITH MY UNCLE

 

ST. KILDA

 

The rocks

The sun

Warm heated through

In short summer

I feel them again

Hard under foot

on the upward slope

the slated slip of

mountain spill

I go to the gap

the thick cleft

of birds’ nests and

upward movement

It comes up quick

It cups the sky

Boreray and

Stac an Armin held

in its bowl you stand

it shapes like flight of

wings to either side

The village its salted bounds

its sea clean walls

You look upwards and hold

your hands sky high

Stand on the edge

it grips

You feel its suck yet still

It falls it falls

The edge is all

That is left.

 

 

A BOY LOOKS AT A DEAD BIRD

 

The sun slips behind clouds

You can barely remember

those days now

Although in mind’s eye you can

almost see

your legs barefoot

and brown from sun hid clouds

your young skin

the length of days in

Summer you would swear they

would never end as the sun

skirts the sky.

Then one sun slipped day

the fall

of a bright eyed bird

from the sky.

It lies broke backed

in front of you

No longer falling

you touch it. Sure life is still there.

But no.

And at last, for the first

You understand.

And the memory

is burned in your eyes.

 

 

DRAGONFLY

(A Young Woman swims in a river.)

 

The heat it wakes up flies

yellow drifts of flowered seed and

stain of red soft sift by

comes in sun wheeled sky

blue as I lie clothesless on

the crackle of straw dry

like Summer touch fields dry

as wind blown lips like then up

flies the dragonfly

up rises the green of

summer up

I feel it

envelop and dye

the air

The hotness of Summer lies

on me pushes me down into

hay straw mattress soft grass

The garden end

and thick noose of plants and green

The upward rush

of cold air off river

slipped underwater

red and brown clay I’m made of

Water I dip first my foot

then legs

Then the body up to my neck

the small bounded world.

The trees around  like green banded pianos

Wind shifted half water notes

I hum my name in

the rock shifted bed of river

in the sun heated grass its

steam like Autumn haar.

I come out for warm.

I hold my ear to the looped

flower and hear distant ocean

the far shore bounded in

the little red flower

The summer heat dogs flies

and lazes them

I too while looking at

small world

I lie on my back

The clouds spin like wheels above

and crooked flights of dragon flies

and falling leaves

arm dark skin I hold in the sky

to sun shade

I try to catch the

little black dots

The little bumble bee falls

over itself

like I see sky see ground

rolling on my back

the grass digs into my

bare back

the dark earth sun warmed.

The geese fly south in stripped v’s.

Now I see it clear

The quiet breath of my life inside me

open like the long red flower

 

 

TIDE

your face

in horizon banded clouds

In the bright arc of morning sun

in the shape of sea

on bow of ship

rainbowing

in the seven coloured water.

I feel your hands

like ghosts on mine

dug down in winter pockets

and the slim line of your body

as we walk side by side

by the lit water

In night sky lit

I lie wishing for you

beside me

On the blonde sand

I see indent and wish

it was your step

To turn and see you framed

In the dark blue

of coming in tide

of sky moving cloud

Of sun bound sky

 

A WALK WITH MY UNCLE (by Rubha Robhanis)

 

The flinty ground is the same

as before and always the short grass

salt in air and downward gaze

the sea smoothed pebbles

small cliff eggs lie mapped

and crunch under foot

after their sky journey

during winter storm.

A half of my life ago we walked

past the same crumbling lip of cliff

the memory cross sneaking inland

and parts of cliff earth no longer there

but turned to sky and paths of birds

we hug the lip

not thinking we forsake the edge

in case the wind has clawed soil underneath

we pass no sea pinks yet.

The unmoved whaleback of Luchraban

where holy men once gazed out

the time indents on cliff of sea pounded rock

and then from the little well we emerge

and the expanse of the Ness lies east and west

the seabirds stand still in air feathers outreached

the cliff arch sea white

And we sit and talk

our slight steps are added

to those who have passed.