Poetry from the West Coast of Scotland
Gerry Loose
Thistle
how can it be said to be grasped & flowering here
clegs midges shield bugs dragonflies gnats earwigs wasps humblebees
bumblebees honey bees
moles bankvoles harvest mice field mice pipistrelles wrens robins
treecreepers buzzards woodpeckers brent geese herons
spotted orchid veronica harebell ragwort nettle sorrel docken tormentil
ragged robin strawberry & that one I can’t name blue the colour of her
eyes
Filipendula the sweetness of meadows Myosotis as if it could be
forgotten Cirsium the farmer’s thistle Cirsium the common thistle
jowl & cheek Kuanyin Avalokitesvara Chenrezig Milarepa the nettle
eater & the thousand armed one Kwannon
beings necessarily converting changing walking dwelling
Equisetum
wound-healer horsetail spenophyte
midge-wakener earth brush
all we have grows in this ditch
equisetum a 400 million year node
place another jet coal on the burning
carefully with those wrought tongs a
hard-pressed carboniferous fragment
feel the green glow red in that ditch
Camellia japonica
such cold among stars
I’d like to hear with my eyes
pluck off my lit eyelids
& throw them
becoming blood
red camellia petals
white noise & two icy nights
off this month’s tranquil moon
& Arcturus’ light
forty years tangled
in the river
reaches the cold camellia
is the hot mind fast
as light or faster
cold truth slower
than humble thought
somewhere in Kyoto
camellia flowers are falling
Clethra barbinervis
on the hill behind my hut, Dumgoyne’s the other side
a helicopter the size of a lightning blue damselfly
perhaps Coenagion puella, methodical, back & forth
a pollinator in reverse spraying what will not grow next spring
to ripple the spine or widen the eye here
in recalling the hill behind your house
imagination perhaps recalls fragrance of the plant called ryoubu
that the nursery man calls Clethra barbinervis – it smells of privet
growing in humid heat above beyond twisting with the path
round shrines there
the clatter of the helicopter echoes across
the glen; teacher of silence the unmoving hinds know
of watching waiting listening
Akebia trifoliata
there’s a discourse here
this unknown plant argues
for me to eat its fruit
purple with black
seeds its own reason
four years growth in
a mouthful my life
grown to this point plant
& myself & you
move to a beginning
Quince
Every autumn we’re at Bowling
where cormorants crucify themselves
& kingfishers illuminate the wharf
to pick fleshed summers through
the blooding of thorns
in each room a thurible of long
hot childhood which we reduce &
eat with spoons deep into snows
dark northern mornings with
bread. With bread.
Huyuichigo / winter strawberry
where it all comes together as all things do as a wild strawberry which he
& I find on that hill behind his house which is also the hill behind a
temple which is the one another now gone recommended
where together we find a winter strawberry plant with its small fruit sweet
& fresh January on this hill & I’m reminded of that path below my hut at
Carbeth where each summer are sweet wild fruits of our own strawberry
where we find overlooked berries together with industrial revolutions
they will bring low here on this little hill with 88 temples which casts its
net wide in a way even together we cannot begin to name
where perhaps this is wisdom after all to not name strawberry huyuichigo
but taste together & eyes meeting move on to a temple though we’re
already there as we all are though we have forgotten
where together we find ourselves forgotten begetters of names & stories
of our faces before birth & journeys on a little hill another node in that
net where together we always are unnamed random
where it’s possible together there’s no need for tension or wisdom there is
neither but long lines of sight rolling out from eyeballs lighting berries &
red memory leaves always unnamed always visited
where it matters beyond measure that together there’s silence that there’s
no measure that there are berries unnamed visited wisdom overlooked by
us together where it is possible that this is
To simply sit for a while.
With this plant worlds brought
together. Redness on a child’s lip.
All children who discover
strawberries hidden in
mountains or on verges.
First faces remembered.
The only lullaby. & gone
from the deer path to my door
forty years splitting logs for fires eh
cuckoo sings her own name again again
***
easter sunday woken by a blue tit bat
tering trapped in my hut so the days pass
***
mice sleep in the bed when I’m a
way I don’t encourage them
***
blackbird & chaffinch sing darkening
day I stare stare mind absent ears
***
arms in rain fetching water from the standpipe stand
ing still sky rainbow sheets forming aching forgotten
***
birch & willow herb among roof moss nesting
blue tits in the chimney wall how short my stay here
***
one whole day watched sky
change from grey to blue
***
mushroom days put on overalls fix the gutters
at the front today yesterday fixed those at the back
***
buzzard delicately tilting wing to tip air
I pour a little water from the bowl overfilled
being time
the sense of the water of the oak
sense of the air in wood
knowledge of the oak in air
knowledge of oak in the wood
sense of knowledge in sense
the crow in the oak
**********
song of the thrush
sense of sound on air
knowledge of tree space in thrush-song
thrush weight on the branch
thrush weight on air sense
song weight on air space
*********
hearing slow rain in air
sound of air rained on
knowledge of hearing air
edging sense
movement hiss
smack of rain on leaves
*********
hinds on the path
/ no hinds on the path
sense of presence
sense of absence
knowledge of hind space
bracken moving
*********
bedrock bulk hill of Dumgoyne
sense of no sky
sky colour in loch water
sense of no colour
water meets air air meets sky
mute swan
*********
digging wet earth under moss
wind moving bracken
no sound of wind
sense of wind
knowledge of hearing
knowledge of no-sound in muscle
Gerry Loose’s words are as likely to be found inscribed in garden or landscape settings as on the page. He’s been Poet in Residence at the Botanic Gardens of Glasgow & at Montpellier, France’s oldest botanic garden. His latest book is Printed on Water, New & Selected Poems (Shearsman 2007) & his online journal of the ancient Sunart oakwoods, where he is currently living, can be found at http://gerryloose.blogspot.com.