Posted in Uncategorized, tagged change, cold, crows, leave fall, nature, November, ravens, senses, time, weather, Winter on November 18, 2012| 3 Comments »
Rook-haunted woods.
Still skies
Crow-scattered.
Raven time,
Starling time,
Fog-drenched, silent.
A million leaves conjure
A beautiful demise,
Then fall into mud,
Crushed and grateful
For sleep:
Escaping from the growing cold,
This pinching of the candle of light,
The slip of degrees.
Skeleton time,
Unfleshed, sparse.
Silhouettes and shadows
Lost in dream:
Sky-rooted,
The taste of loam
And marl.
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged Autumn, Breadalbane, clouds, Cuillins, dawn, dawn sky, glen garry, hills, Isle of Skye, landscape, lochs, mist, nature, photography, Poetry, portree skye, relections, Scotland, sky, Sleat, sleat isle of skye, TheTrossachs, travel, trees, Trotternish, valleys, water, waves of light on November 13, 2012| 9 Comments »
We recently travelled to the Isle of Skye and the Western Highlands of Scotland. October in Scotland is glorious and the weather was good – not too overcast, not too sunny – so that we were able to see the land in many of its moods and atmospheres. I have selected a few images around the subject of water. I hope you enjoy the visual essay.
Taken from a cafe window in Portree, Skye, early morning looking east.
Fron Ord, Sleat, Isle of Skye, looking across Loch Eishort towards the Black Cuillins.
Clouds reflecting in the still waters of a loch an near Kilt Rock, Trotternish, Skye.
Looking across the sea to Harris from Duntulm, Trotternish, Skye.
Ripples on Loch Bay, Waternish, Skye.
Dawn sky over Kyleakin, Skye. The view from our bedroom window.
Sunrise over Kyleakin, Skye. Waves of light.
Early morning mists lift into the sky over Glen Garry.
Mists, shadows, trees, Glen Garry.
Still waters, slow moving mists. Loch Lochy.
Sunlight enters the woods. Mist rises from the waters. Loch Lochy.
Water-worn pools, Falls of Killin.
Waterside willows, Loch Venachar.
The sky below. Loch Venachar.
The Waters of the World. Loch Venachar.
——
This world
is the Otherworld:
Silver and gold
in turns.
The road flies
to the horizons
where our eyes linger,
longing
for something
right
in front
of
us.
———
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged Aonghus Macneacail, heartbeat, inspiration, music, musing, Poetry, reading, Sorley MacLean, the muse on November 9, 2012| 6 Comments »
could I carry
The words of aonghus macneacail
Safely in my head,
A basket of eloquence,
Then my own tongue
(And its roaming spirit)
Would never be silenced.
And my eye would be
Hard as nails, soft
As sea foam
Seeing all, feeling all
In sounds
Round and slap flat,
Like a bodhrain
Of the heart.
Wave-formed sound
Of how it is,
How it may be,
How it was –
A weaving of Time
And Space,
A knotting of nets
To catch the fast, glistening shoals
Of verse,
Clever creel to hold safe
All those
Camoflaged, scuttling notions.
For they are there
When I am in drought,
(lips cracked, tongue
Cleaved to mouth’s ceiling),
Angus, and Sorley, too:
Like sudden, hidden
mellifluous streams
Stumbled across
On the deserted, bleak
Black moors,
bringing fountains of words
Tumbling,
Roaring
For an hour or two
Until subdued
In bog and slough
Or drowned,
quenched,
Tumbling
Over the cliffside
To be lost
In the hidden rivers
Of the sea.
——-
(On a recent trip to the Isle of Skye I bought a copy of Aonghas MacNeacail’s new volume “Laughing at the clock” in Portree.
I have, there and since, been working on a poetic piece in many parts concerning the passage of Time, landscape, life, death, the secret commonwealth of the Sidhe, inspiration, Independance, freedom…..
It is not the usual way I work – a careful fishing for lines, a tentative accumulation of images, and the whole edifice rises and sinks over time like a mythical island. But when I think I have exhausted its potential, or become distracted by daily events, all I need to do is to open up a page of Aonghus’s, or of Sorley Maclean and then my head is filled with a flurry of muse’s feathers ( coming or going), which, if I am fortunate in giving the time to put down the phrases and ideas, can fuel many things.
Language is indeed a virus, it seems. And I am happy not to be innoculated…..)
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged epitaph, Haiku, Poetry, words on November 6, 2012| 1 Comment »
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged Autumn, change, cold, cosmos, dissolution, leaf fall, night, November, Poetry, space, stars, time, Winter on November 5, 2012| 1 Comment »
Cold flame
Crisping leaves:
Autumn stars’
Distant roaring.
Time,
Weightless,
Escapes
Into the endless
Night.
Adrift,
We revolve slowly,
Catching sight
Ocassionally
Of where we
Have been….
simonhlilly 