‘In country that is rough, but not difficult, one sees where one is and where one is going at the same time’ (Nan Shepherd)
As rock speaks to any
trained or curious eye:
someone else
sometime else
laid down words—
thin sheets or thick—
something broke them
lifted, pressed them
here: each rippled sand
each pebble clenched:
motion rendered
visible, in red boulders
thick with clasts, a wild
conglomerate, something made
of other things where
‘pain and suffering shape
the mind,’ a quite implausible
‘up above’ where wind hammers
worlds together: convenient
and bleak
reduced to brash or
lichen crust as brute matter
wind/light/space
a mystery thick
as contour lines on an old map
—called reticent
or maybe clitched, or
‘looking back down
the path to the sea’
—I meant seabed
a fossil storm just
part way up
to paradise—look here:
a shallow dip in rough scree
‘where water comes gradually
into focus’ only because
it trembles: that is wind
speaking softly
felt by those who carry pain
as others carry
talismans, a descendental
willingness
to walk all day in pursuit
of fear—I mean
to corner it, trap it, parse it
thumbing a rock
of green/black waves
touching light
in the form of leaf
time in a metamorphic
stone: ‘and who
with any sense
can’t be interested
in that?’—the sheen
the shades, the Gates
of Delirium—
sandstone, sandwort
iron oxide
thought or spasm
touch or word:
where a breeze
crosses pain flutters
muscle, ligament
sediment, sentiment
trees bent flat
by wind and snow
skirling waves
of rock uplifting:
try to stand there
try to find
a there exactly
touching here
a timberline
so crystal clear
so free of pity
free of dread
and all the lakes
that live there still
as wind.
Avalanche Theory
Not cross-section but snow cushion
Not snow cushion but wind slab
Not wind slab but depth hoar
Not depth hoar but deprivation
Not deprivation but detriment
Not detriment but punishment
Not punishment but pillory
Not pillory but armory
Not armory but memory
Not memory but milkweed
Not milkweed but fireweed
Not fireweed but free fall
Not free fall but base fold
Not base fold but firn snow
Not firn snow but snow plume
Not snow plume but speed of sound
Not speed of sound but surge of air
Not surge of air but line of fracture
Not line of fracture but alabaster
Not alabaster but adamant
Not adamant but parchment
Not parchment but palinode
Not palinode but pine warbler
Not pine warbler but wind pebble
Not wind pebble but blunt pencil
Not blunt pencil but burned pillar
Snow rarely falls in a state of absolute calm
six sections from Suibhne on Eigg: A Dictionary of His Days and Nights
This sequence began during my residency at Bothan Suibhne/Sweeney’s Bothy on the Hebridean island of Eigg. A collaboration between Alec Finlay and The Bothy Project, the glass-walled, one-room retreat is the second in a series of artist huts in remote Scottish locations. Finlay has written: I was inspired by the ancient Gaelic legend of Suihbne/Sweeney, the 7th century poet-king who underwent a traumatic crisis in the clash and bring of battle, levitated, leapt, and took to sleeping in a thorn bush. His war-torn exile in the wilderness became a way to interrogate the wild mind, hutting, dwelling, survivalism, protest, and island culture. In some tales, Suibhne found brief refuge on Eigg, the farthest point in his wanderings. In keeping with the limits of island resources, the poems are composed using the Analytic Dictionary procedure (created by the Oulipo’s Noël Arnaud) in which each word must be generated from letters of preceding words arranged in a prescribed and compact graphic.
ISLAND
An inch of silver light. A narrow danger, illegible intent, or an amorous arc in low, gray water. Then rock nest, hump-backed, veering high above raw, green edge. Tender yarrow opens at evening. Reach wild rest.
SHUIBHNE
A salt hut under island’s black headland. A nervous eagle, unafraid of northward-slanting light. An empty eye, an anger, a lift: tensing. In doubt, he listens, arcs away as rising gulls turn east.
SALT
Sea-ash. Light-talk. Eye-sting. If island air is a hard glance, a low hut is home to kelp and thistle.
HUT
A haven under thorn. A northward hum. To view the danger is to own the edge. As echo, as ebb, so rest and rage will near, return. Narrowly.
ARROW
Its arc is its reach. Like a raven over open water, the eye reads its exact path. Or, as a compass alters without effort, so an echo touches a cliff. Double or nothing: in the enemy’s hand, a single rock.
THORN
A test of hope, its opposite is rage. Naked, exiled, his only path is ascent, but angle, like spear point, pierces. Gnawing, kneeling, torn, exhausted, he owns his own ending, scents his own death. Imagined terror: an exact equal.