This afternoon’s wild walk by my gale-swept Nordic shores prompted a blog post in my mind.
However, as wild waves – rollers, breakers – crashed at my feet, my heart reeled back to last weekend, as disaster struck over an antipodean archipelago.
Wild waves by my shoormal.
News of the cataclysm in the Pacific prompted a piece in response, written in the wake of it last Monday.
Living Planet
400,000 lightning bolts.
That sonic boom heard in Fiji, New Zealand, even Alaska. Hunga-Tonga-Hunga Ha’pai blown into sky; billowing cloud, giant mushroom on satellite, it has been felt around the globe.
Little Earth shook - ocean rippled so far away, Peru, Japan… It has been felt around us all.
So much unknown under water or where folk live like castaways; potential hell, dust, acid rain over it all.
Harvesting fruits out of projects – to the poet, tis the moment to celebrate words ripe enough to shine and echo through folk’s hearts…
Months turned in weeks, as Mother Earth waltzes in grace amid the void and songs from stars, light from our Sun reminds of life – from the vegetal to birdsong, September shines and celebrates.
Fleurs de saison, like seeds of life from a planet en route to changes of her own… Let’s reel seasons, as the island sings and flowers – where life as free as flocks of birds comes to da loch to drink or bathe.
Tis that moment I celebrate.
Clumlie Loch shared at WordPlay 2021.
Tis the same that has journeyed from hills and burn (stream) down to the sea to settle among other greats and less known voices in two towns, Lerwick and Edinburgh, through the summer.
Clumlie Lochcelebrates wild life – tis where we witness wilderness as important as rainforests or melting ice at either poles… Because it homes essence of life.
Clumlie Loch at the Virtual Exhibition by the the WWF Scotland’s Great Scottish Canvas Initiative, 18-26 Sep ’21 during Climate Fringe.
Today, The Great Scottish Canvas has begun to display it in a virtual exhibition. Such an honour to map Shetland to the greatest of Earth Summits.
It will feature in November among others and other art forms – 45 in total , from 45 Scottish voices, poets, writers, visual artists and sculptors… 45 voices to trigger a beam of hope for life on Earth… Our survival as a species and for our homeworld, natural.
Teeming life at Clumlie Loch, 2021.
Nature, so inspiring, our garden of Eden, we ought to protect at all costs.
Let’s hope and pray, our words and works speak to all world leaders in Glasgow. Like Jackie Kay, Scottish icon as a poet & former Makar – she, the insatiable optimist – I believe in wisdom and future in which children will bloom and grow in a rich world where animals and plant can live.
I feel humbled, honoured and chuffed for Clumlie Loch to feature among Jackie’s and others’ works, blown up on walls to they eyes and hearts of all COP26 participants.
Let’s enjoy Hairst and life on Earth, where our hearts beat.
When one’s love of a great author nestles admiration, her creative spirit and verve on paper to a fabulous collective and ends up in a major literary body of work.
I, the poet, feel humbled by such accolade & participation to the great edifice – brainchild from friend and fellow poet, Makar at our Federation Writers (Scotland) and compagnon d’écriture, Jim Mackintosh, through time.
Together, we celebrate George Mackay Brown’s centenary through a wonderful anthology titled very aptly Beyond the Swelkie now ready to pre-order.
There are moments when we just need to step back and dream…
Step back and sleep, dream in the arms of the dragon. April the joker, the trickster, that turned the island back to ice.
Our spring buds deprived of sap, light and that warmth, had to yield to the wrath, shenanigans from a planet déboussolée…
It all happened within minutes…
Even Saoirse the Cat had to give in to da bliind moorie -a violent snow storm – that engulfed us in its millions of horizontal icicles.
I’m pretty sure she dreamt of bees and bugs she loves so much to play with… She looks a meerkat on her back limbs. So comical at times.
I was dreaming of summer.
Voar – our springtime – is a season to respect. As Mother Earth turns generous once more, life in all its forms begins again. The island back in a sky filled with birdsong – oystercatchers, curlews, skylarks and snipes to name but a few… We seed to harvest and yet we are aware of its harshness.
In their life-driven waves, our seabirds feel magnetised to our cliffs. Guillemots, razorbills and puffins had to battle a polar flying gale to reconvene in our boreal world.
Life back on land
April still clawed by cold air.
And yet nature is resilient. From daffodils to primroses, from Skylarks to Meadow Pipits or Northern Wheatears, wir voar means life.
On and around the island, magic occurs. Last weekend alone was graced by a pod of orcas on Saturday followed by a showcase of wir tammie nories (that delightful local name for our Atlantic Puffins) at sundown.
Magical.
We really live on an extraordinary planet.
It does not take much to tear down preconceived ideas and marvel at the diversity of life. The trick being to open our eyes and heart, and feel part of it.
Life is everywhere: in the wild, in cities – Mother Nature finds her ways in the most incredible places, from a stone wall to the great depths of our oceans…
We are all guests on our planet, that has a twin, so different.
Now, the following piece of verse is all about our Earth’s sister.
Planet Walk (Venus)
YOU ARE HERE,
between Mercury and my world, one grain of sand on a lone beach, in easy reach to solar winds, rotating eye around stardust; you, Earth’s sister, encased in hell and toxic clouds, sun, volcanoes and hurricanes – you too look blue from the distance through a filter. So far away from Tahiti, you caught the eye of a captain when you appeared as a black disc, so elusive before the sun. Amazing grace, your rotation in slow motion – each sunrise lasts, days outclass years on your surface – the odd one out waltzing clockwise in our West sky. You are beauty without seasons, hottest of all, void of water, rocky-basalt in a cocktail so Molotov… Satellite irresistible, you are goddess among the stars, no one will dare to plant a flag; but still wonder if there is life, love in your clouds.✨
Here, to candlelight, the poem I scribbled during those 60 minutes.
A Poem for Earth Hour
Let's light candles for Mother Earth, our powerhouse, home under stars; 60 minutes without a bulb plugged to a grid some invented to blind over a billion stars, the many eyes of the divine that look on us through the curtain of stratosphere... 60 minutes to feel humble close to the flame of candlelight - Mother Earth loves acts of kindness, for we are playing with fire; minutes to finish my poem, light-years away from Cassiopeia, Andromeda, as we plug back to defy black. I wish I had eyes of the cat.
She walks, she walks, she talks and chases a feather,
twist from the wind, tale from Tarmac;
she talks and tackles a feather, life’s filaments, keratin white – she runs and curses a feather, hands in the air, her hair’s gone wild, imploring the whole of the sky…
She stops and stamps that lone feather, she holds the world inside her hand.
Yuletide is a magic, signalling a new life cycle start – a slow return to light, the sun, currently at 6.6 degree elevation at its zenith… And in those times of darkness, the faintest spark feels a treasure.
The island, engulfed in some 5 and something hours of light on 21 Dec., is already scraping seconds away. Snowflakes dusted every inch of sand, heather and grass this polar felt 24 Dec. 2020.
Yule, Yöl Eve, julhaften, or réveillon, here comes two poems – one in Shetland dialect from Vagaland; the other, from my own pen.
Fae Mr Robertson, aka Vagaland,
Santie’s Reindeer
Da Göd Man hings da starns
Laek peerie lamps sae bricht,
Sae Santie Klaas can fin his wye,
Whin he comes here da nicht.
Dis nicht he yoks his reindeer up,
An drives dem trowe da sky;
Dan he taks on his muckle bag
An leaves his slaidge ootbye.
An, Maamie, whin you mylk da coo
You’ll geng an tak a
O hey, or maybe twartree
An laeve dem lyin furt.
Da reindeer haes sae far ta geng;
Dey’re maybe hed nae maet,
An he’ll be blyde if he can fin
A grain fir dem ta aet.
A’ll hing my sock apo da
Jöst in below da brace,
An whin he’s trivveled trowe da
He’ll aesy fin da place.
He’ll never come till A’m asleep,
Sae A’ll pit on my goon
An up da stairs ita da
A’ll geng an lay me doon.
You’ll pit da claes aboot me noo,
Becaase he’s gittin late;
An, Maamie, whin you mylk da coo
You’ll mind da reindeer’s maet.
Vagaland.
Hame, at Yöl.
And if Vagaland leaves food for the reindeers, I will gladly leave some for a Norwegian character…
November, month of hellery – this fine Shetland dialect word that encapsulates the worse from the sky in the form of storms of any kind – enshrouded in darkness since daylight feels more and more elusive.
Hel, hell, hellery, as 2020 has never matched our expectations; held us hostage within our walls, and loved ones disappear…
Spaekalation – another fine Shetland dialect word that translates as gossip – is a raw piece written at night, as an attempt to deal with both the savagery of the sky and a sudden and an unexpected bereavement. This poem was first written in the dialect and then translated in English
spaekalation
Whit's yun?
Is yun a gooster or a ghoul?
Twa goggly eens i'da tree,
is yun an owl o some kind?
Ta da dare-say o'da mirken, da vaelensi is juist
begun;
dey say dat ghosts ir among wis,
waanderin, lone, aroond wir laand - dy an
me hoose,
da tattie crö, barn an byre -
dey say dey travel wi da flan an da snitter,
skid juist laek bairns apö
da snaa an glerl o ice,
hide i'da white o'da moorie ta
mind da reek o chimney stacks.
Dey say dey sit by da fire atween
da caird an da wirsit -
da Slockit Licht,
crabbit embers ta keep
da memory alive.
Deir shadows
glide alaang da waa,
listen ta da saang o'da nicht.
----
Gossip
What's this?
Is that a messy gust of wind or just a ghoul?
Two goggly eyes inside a tree,
is it an owl of some kind?
To the hear-say of dusk,
That brisk downpour has just begun;
They say that ghosts are among us,
wandering, lone, around
the land, my and
your house,
the spud corner, barn and cowshed -
they say they travel with wind gusts or biting cold air,
nordicblackbird 