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But for the hydro-electricity of my love - Poem
Literary Review, Wntr, 2002
but for the hydro-electricity of my love for scotland, scotland, land of melting snows unpredictable sunshines, boastful winds, of the cold rocks, the splintered rocks, the brittle but for the hydro-electricity of my love catching streams from the heights of my chest your cough would be rougher, you'd be wandering on the high ledges of the peaks in the plausible deceptive haar, among the twining tendrils of seaweed (one eye spots profit, one complains of hypnotic snakes about your knees) your arias is full of signposts saying this way and this other way to the three objectives which you are not even sure you wish is to get to, if i could be sure you were sure, i'd be in your car singing with you the songs, new and old, wide as the healing sea, long and thin as a thread of spit, but it's when you seemed to refuse a horse and cart in the days of scarcity, rocket to the moon in the prodigal time we'll not forget, the kiss of union, the wind's indifferent kiss, nothing should be easy, you'd prefer the crippled wheel, you'd send your brothers down into earth's belly, into the brutal consuming dust you'd send your brothers over ways, to draw the jewel of their lives, your desire's magnet, from cliffs of water, you'd send your sister across to weave banners of delight with kings, that morning your eyes woke, joyous and large with hope, smoothing exquisite perfumes into your green breast, preparing yourself, preparing yourself for the plausible deceiving lover, what haven't you promised would succulently adorn your children's innocent table, that music on the fiddle so ancient, familiar, that you'd heard it in your mother's tidal voice, when you were limp with pleasure in her lap, suckling her milk quiet, you say, and listen to that tune on the harpstring; we'll make it new, put new words to it, a new tune to it, an utterly new anthem, electric, radiant but listen to it, the old words, some turned upside down some back to front, some bent over, some stretched out, and the music, faster, slower, you couldn't get a razor's, or a wind's edge, between what you promised and the presumed-abandoned, and the pipers each chanter blowing its own tune into the contest, psalm of war, civil, so civil, and at the time of triumph, you put fist to fist, and whacked yourself, still without finding answer for that calculus where the figures, after the point, continue to diminish ... to infinity ...
Aonghas MacNeacail is a native of Skye and presently lives in Peeblesshire. His poetry collection Oideachadh Ceart agus dain eile/ A Proper Schooling and other poems won The Stakis Prize for Scottish Writer of the Year in 1997. He has published several other collections of poetry, including imaginary wounds, sireadh bradain sicir/ seeking wise salmon, and an cathadh mor/the great snowbattle.
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