Orkney Crossing

Orkney Crossing :

Ring of Brogdar, Stones of Stenness.

At the centre, the pendulum drops, Down, down, down.

Think, imagine, centre.

Concentrate, reach, reach out.

My thoughts have not yet shifted and sifted or sorted themselves into chapters.

They are still out to sea.

 

I am looking towards Orkney from on board the good ship Hamnavoe just past the Old Man of Hoy,

an enveloping fog bank drops.

A smothering grief, moves over me imperceptibly.

Covering, obscuring, changing outlines and landmarks, erasing the compass until I am submerged.

 

And although I know my feet stand planted on deck and I hear the ships engine roaring on and on.

there is no feeling of forward motion,

nothing to indicate progress through the water.

The fog covers all.

 

Floating clouds how vast, how vast.

How you deaden with white light.

How you deafen with density.

How you change the topography with veils of water.

 

And you waters above the heavens, O bless the Lord.

All you showers and dew, O bless the Lord.

And you lightnings and clouds, O bless the Lord.

Sing Daniel, sing David, sing Solomon.

And you wives and daughters O bless the Lord,

Sing from within the heart of the mists, covered by the shrouding vapor, as Moses on Sinai.

The journey to the Holy Mountain is many miles from the sea.

 

 

 


 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Collect Art Publication July 2023

Image
 First published in Collect Arts Summer 2023 edition Stone all the flowers   The year of the art school tutorials. The difficult woman you are to me, and the difficulty I present to you. The year of my recovery and your husband’s death.   Your husband fails and worsens through the days of our trimesters together. As he weakens and declines, I grow incrementally stronger. As if terrible fatalistic scales of balance, set and reset.   Do not cheat her. Give her a full measure of time and experiences with him. Pressed down, shaken together and overflowing. She, in the face of all this decay   Chooses to destroy flowers with stones. Until their purple hearts stained the cartridge with their elemental pigments.   She cuts the flowers only to waste them in the parching sun. It is the cycle of being and unbeing, the grass withers and the flower fades (Isiah 40:8). She decides to press her flowers till their lungs burst on fine cotton Lawn.   Flower tortu
Read more

Five Pandemic Poems

Image
 Five Pandemic Poems 1. Solitary 2. At the bird sanctuary 3. Writing practice 4. Closing the chapter 5. Icon eyes                                              Image from Unsplash Open Source. 1.  Solitary  I could be a fifty-three-year-old woman. Living post-cancer. In a world where cancer is suddenly not the biggest, baddest virus on the Block. All the emotions I dealt with about a growing death within me. Harbouring an enemy in my breast. My habits during illness of self-imposed quiet, solitary days. The lore of stay home, stay safe. Now everyone experiences this in the time of lockdown, in a pandemic.                                              Blackbird Rainbow, by Frances Ann Norton 2.  At the bird sanctuary Its so hard growing up, my beautiful brave girl. The moment you were put into my arms after a long labour I knew you were a fighter, an old soul, determined and singular. You withstand your greatest health burden with magnanimity, dignity and stoic
Read more
Image
  https://www.haus-a-rest.com/new-page-72 Fantastic to have two poem selected for the Haus-A-Rest zine issue 39. Artschool and what it did or did not tell you.  The Ontological Art School and What I Learned There In a game of solitaire, I am dealt a number of random cards – these are my social locators. Where and when I was born and my parents, these things are out of my control. Just like the cards I have been dealt. Knowing and understanding my locators is like playing a game strategy. Making the best use of the cards I have. This is my ontology of the art school. My parents met at post-war art school in the 1940s. Their evenings were filled with philosophical and art theory discussions at the jazz clubs. The ontological context of the art school for me was in the wider community too. My sister and I grew in a network of artists, musicians, poets and designers. I thought everyone lived like this. We I spent our chodhood in the corridors and classrooms of the loc
Read more