Meigle Sculptured Stones Museum

The ghost of a schoolhouse,
the ghost of its children
and where the ghost of a meaning
(of symbols, of stones)
would sit would sit
one schoolboy laughing
at the thought of it.
The guffaw of it
and wonder.

For ‘H’

(prompted by three words from Thomas Wyatt)

Go, burning sighs,
you went, I know
some other way
and left some show-
and-tell of misery
that went with you,
that sent self away
some other way
in absent eyes
and silent face –
Go, burning sighs.

Go, burning sighs,
you went, extinguished
yourself upon
the flaming boy
now cool, now slow
now part-distinguished
from others in his walks;
lone ways, lone songs
high in desert ashes –
Go, burning sighs.

Go burning sighs.
Breath cold on distant,
distant quiet fleshes.

Remembering friends I barely knew

A hand held up
in wave and flash
of friend-ness,
plus one wish
of shake and all
forever stashed
in plainness.

A smile, of course,
if only inwards
and conversation
twisted words
of half-thoughts,
quarters, thirds
of recognition.

The memory
of this friend
I hardly knew
can’t reach its end
at all because
what is circle-planned
we can’t undo.

A voice to laugh
and whispered calm.
A valent bond
not free from harm
but breakable
if handled firm
by held-up hand.

The Moon, one morning

Rose, halfly, stumbled
one radian to the sky
and blushed embarrassment
at her shamelessness.

Why show
the world
the folk
my face?

Light blunted off her
from the Sun and cloud
colour took her image
and formed it.

I show
the world
the folk
no face.

Lochlyn hunts Blackbird

A half-eyed crouch
knowing the fern unfurled
hid both from each.

And no reach from either
by hand, wing or eye –
no beak-noise, no voice
rose in shade, hiding
as the moon in day.

His crouch slipped up
and out to the world
where the blackbird senses,
and it climbed, flew up
to the cage fence, his
smile turned to me
and the meeting was plain
and the parting joyful.