Making pictures - Poem

making pictures

   before i'd even stepped out of the door, i had travelled. there
   were pictures in my
   head, the pictures of my father's words gave me

   i could see the bridge across the river, the bridge was like our
   own bridge, and the river was like our own river, except that they
   were much bigger, the bridge was
   faster and the river stronger. at its mouth, the river was as wide as
   an ocean

   that great world was on the other side of the ridge, when i closed
   my eyes, there
   was a lion on the other side of the street, though i'd never seen a
   street before,
   and though my father had said nothing about a lion, but there
   was a picture of a
   lion in the coloured book he brought home for me, a yellow
   lion. it was my mother who said that's a lion. a big cat ... i knew
   where our village boundaries were.

   though sea came into our bay, it was to the other side of the
   ridge my father went to
   be at sea. sea went up that other river, in under the big bridge.
   my father saw a
   man jumping off that bridge into the sea. he didn't tell the story
   to me but told a neighbour, but i happened to be the other side
   of a wall when he told the story, that height, he said.

   when i closed my eyes there was a man falling from a bridge as
   high as the sky,
   and i was a river as wide as an ocean, a mane of shores, and my
   fangs waiting

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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