"The great matriarch and her stories had been buried these last twenty years, in the side chamber where she died. Such is the badger’s way." I love that they do, these little miracles of hidden intelligence in the creatures of secret places, you speak their language so fluently David.
Hi Susie. Thanks for coming along. I don't know how you find the time. I barely surface for a breather from seventeenth-century Gaelic subjunctives at the moment. Another few months of scribbling on this modern parchment and I'll hopefully be done with the rite of passage that is a PhD - to sail a bit battered back into the world :-)
I applaud your greater ability David, Gaelic is a complicated language, seventeenth century Gaelic I daren't even hazard I guess, I have difficulty enough juggling French conjugation, never mind the subjunctives and conjunctions! As for time, bare minutes are snatched at breakfast with hot tea is all... Four hours a day extra would be a welcome gift!
That's kind of you, Caroline. It was always the plan :-) I've been doing a lot of translation for bilingual publication lately, of modern Gaelic poetry. Trying to let some of the magic rub off into my prose :-)
It seems each new piece, David, is more captivating than the last. You are a well of word smithing and weaving a story so descriptive, the reader (listener), is caught up in the scene itself! Bravo!
We all could wish to be carried with such love during our funeral processions, as was the little mole. Yes to the generosity of the land, and memory, too. Death (and its reminders) in spring always feels the most poignant to me, the sharp contrast between burgeoning life and its endings — but of course that is my human illusion, they circle each other endlessly, with no resting place. Wishing you long rains to awaken the bone lands, David. x
Dear Ambermoggie, there you are again, with your basket of kind words, always conjuring up the image of a wonderful marmalade cat :-) Thank you for both
Thanks, Jean, for your kindness again. I've spent a lot of time translating Gaelic poetry recently, for bilingual publication. I try my best to let some of the magic dust rub off :-)
Translating Gaelic poetry?? How cool is that? Once, a long time ago, I tried to learn Irish Gaelic. Didn't pursue it but those languages are so beautiful.
Yes, its a fearful difficult language to get anywhere near right. I spent ten years living and breathing it out on the far western fringes where it is still spoken as the everyday language of hopes and dreams and going to the shops. And really, I'm still just in the foothills :-)
There are odd poems in journals here and there but the recent work was translating the whole of Agallamh sa Cheo by Ceaití Ní Bheildiúin, which won the Hartnett prize a couple of years ago. That is being published bilingually under the title Climbing the Sky, by the Irish-language publisher Cló Iar-Chonnacht, probably coming out this autumn. I had a lot of fun working with her, we both lean a bit to magical realism :-)
Goodness. I am constantly astounded by the utter beauty of your word-witchery, David. The spells you cast with language leave me stunned speechless. I look at my paddle hands and mourn those soil swimmers sinking upwards to drown under the pitiless sky but knowing one day it will be my turn to be washed clean by the land to return my stories…
David, you have left me speechless, and as you know, that is a major feat. We drove up to our seasonal camp today . Just south of the Canadian border at the northern tip of Vermont. Still too cold to begin the season, but a beautiful day to start the process of waking up the land with strong arms and a rake. I sat on a large granite boulder overlooking the lake at lunch time , listening to your voice carry me across the pristine glacial water, across an ocean, to your home in Cumbria. I listened twice. My heart filled with your lyrical meditation mixing with an abundance of our water and the rebirth of spring. Thankful for your words. Ironically ,my rake found its own hidden bone, a perfect spinal vertebrae. I guess I did have a few words to say…
You are the archer who, with those words you cup and flex, and peer along, craft arrows, straight shafted and precision-fletched which you then send flying toward their marks, these stories and tomes. We are not your target, we understand that, the stories themselves are your aim. But setting ourselves along your arrows' paths we feel the sizz and twirl of breeze as they pass, see the parting of air, and gasp our wondrous gasps as your arrows find their center. What magic, what honor to stand behind that story, to see and feel the approaching arrows of your poet aim, to feel the faint jolt as tip meets target center, completing a tale and piercing us, deeply, who stand just behind.
Ever grateful, my friend. Again, your arrow flies true...
Dear friend. I had no intention to intrude on your grief and it is for sure that I of all people have precious little wisdom to offer. But I was thinking of you when I wrote the last paragraph. Keep singing your lovely songs :-)
Astonishing meditation David. You walked me into the slow, parched vacancy of rainless scapes, feeling how that true blue sky can also be truly cruel. But then! You bring me into the soil, also dusty but decaying, replenishing, even by your own generous hands carrying the weight across tarmac, reminding me that even in all this death and dying, the land gives us back to wholeness, light, fresh, almost springlike in your cotton-grass breeze.
“Today, again, her messenger crawls lanky-legged back to moisture and reports that the blue remains miserly, hoarding its wealth offshore. The dew’s lips are parched and cracked. She can barely lick them wet.”
Ah, Kimberly, where would I be without your encouragement, as I teeter and topple over the stepping stones of narrative while the torrent of language rushes by. Hope your book is flying off the shelves and leaping out of the servers :-) I bet it is.
Another amazing and beautifully-crafted piece - and so many beautiful comments that I can't add to them, only agree with them. But the little mole flipper brought tears to my eyes.
TAXIDEA TAXUS
Medicine Woman
She showed me
how to dig
and where—
Into the closet
and through
the past
through objects
owned by others
through photographs
of ancestors
known and unknown
through
mind-memories
and body-memories
down and down
deeper still
until I find
the root
of the wounding
take it
like medicine
and am healed
"The great matriarch and her stories had been buried these last twenty years, in the side chamber where she died. Such is the badger’s way." I love that they do, these little miracles of hidden intelligence in the creatures of secret places, you speak their language so fluently David.
Hi Susie. Thanks for coming along. I don't know how you find the time. I barely surface for a breather from seventeenth-century Gaelic subjunctives at the moment. Another few months of scribbling on this modern parchment and I'll hopefully be done with the rite of passage that is a PhD - to sail a bit battered back into the world :-)
I applaud your greater ability David, Gaelic is a complicated language, seventeenth century Gaelic I daren't even hazard I guess, I have difficulty enough juggling French conjugation, never mind the subjunctives and conjunctions! As for time, bare minutes are snatched at breakfast with hot tea is all... Four hours a day extra would be a welcome gift!
Reads like one extraordinary prose poem
That's kind of you, Caroline. It was always the plan :-) I've been doing a lot of translation for bilingual publication lately, of modern Gaelic poetry. Trying to let some of the magic rub off into my prose :-)
It most certainly does! :-)
It seems each new piece, David, is more captivating than the last. You are a well of word smithing and weaving a story so descriptive, the reader (listener), is caught up in the scene itself! Bravo!
Dear Patricia, always there with a generous word as I try to walk my way across the wobbly tightrope of language :-)
We all could wish to be carried with such love during our funeral processions, as was the little mole. Yes to the generosity of the land, and memory, too. Death (and its reminders) in spring always feels the most poignant to me, the sharp contrast between burgeoning life and its endings — but of course that is my human illusion, they circle each other endlessly, with no resting place. Wishing you long rains to awaken the bone lands, David. x
Hi, Carmine. 'Death in spring', yes, you put your finger on the pulse again. That's why I always cry when I hear the story of The Brindled Cow :-)
As always I’m struck by the beauty and poetry of your words. Thank you
Dear Ambermoggie, there you are again, with your basket of kind words, always conjuring up the image of a wonderful marmalade cat :-) Thank you for both
Good lord this is beautiful. You blend poetry and prose to create amazing word pictures.
Thanks, Jean, for your kindness again. I've spent a lot of time translating Gaelic poetry recently, for bilingual publication. I try my best to let some of the magic dust rub off :-)
Translating Gaelic poetry?? How cool is that? Once, a long time ago, I tried to learn Irish Gaelic. Didn't pursue it but those languages are so beautiful.
Yes, its a fearful difficult language to get anywhere near right. I spent ten years living and breathing it out on the far western fringes where it is still spoken as the everyday language of hopes and dreams and going to the shops. And really, I'm still just in the foothills :-)
I salute you, sir. Where are these poems appearing?
There are odd poems in journals here and there but the recent work was translating the whole of Agallamh sa Cheo by Ceaití Ní Bheildiúin, which won the Hartnett prize a couple of years ago. That is being published bilingually under the title Climbing the Sky, by the Irish-language publisher Cló Iar-Chonnacht, probably coming out this autumn. I had a lot of fun working with her, we both lean a bit to magical realism :-)
That must have been a wonderful thing to do. I'd love to have a look at it.
Goodness. I am constantly astounded by the utter beauty of your word-witchery, David. The spells you cast with language leave me stunned speechless. I look at my paddle hands and mourn those soil swimmers sinking upwards to drown under the pitiless sky but knowing one day it will be my turn to be washed clean by the land to return my stories…
David, you have left me speechless, and as you know, that is a major feat. We drove up to our seasonal camp today . Just south of the Canadian border at the northern tip of Vermont. Still too cold to begin the season, but a beautiful day to start the process of waking up the land with strong arms and a rake. I sat on a large granite boulder overlooking the lake at lunch time , listening to your voice carry me across the pristine glacial water, across an ocean, to your home in Cumbria. I listened twice. My heart filled with your lyrical meditation mixing with an abundance of our water and the rebirth of spring. Thankful for your words. Ironically ,my rake found its own hidden bone, a perfect spinal vertebrae. I guess I did have a few words to say…
Dear Lor. You take me and my bag of words on trips to such wonderful places. Ever grateful :-)
I’m so glad I can reciprocate, even just a little bit !
You are the archer who, with those words you cup and flex, and peer along, craft arrows, straight shafted and precision-fletched which you then send flying toward their marks, these stories and tomes. We are not your target, we understand that, the stories themselves are your aim. But setting ourselves along your arrows' paths we feel the sizz and twirl of breeze as they pass, see the parting of air, and gasp our wondrous gasps as your arrows find their center. What magic, what honor to stand behind that story, to see and feel the approaching arrows of your poet aim, to feel the faint jolt as tip meets target center, completing a tale and piercing us, deeply, who stand just behind.
Ever grateful, my friend. Again, your arrow flies true...
Dear friend. I had no intention to intrude on your grief and it is for sure that I of all people have precious little wisdom to offer. But I was thinking of you when I wrote the last paragraph. Keep singing your lovely songs :-)
I loved listening to this, David. I listened a couple of times. Your voice matches the feeling of the text so well. It soothed me, today. Thank you.
Thank you, Harriet. So nice to know my words found a home :-)
How very beautiful!
Thank you. That is kind of you.
Astonishing meditation David. You walked me into the slow, parched vacancy of rainless scapes, feeling how that true blue sky can also be truly cruel. But then! You bring me into the soil, also dusty but decaying, replenishing, even by your own generous hands carrying the weight across tarmac, reminding me that even in all this death and dying, the land gives us back to wholeness, light, fresh, almost springlike in your cotton-grass breeze.
“Today, again, her messenger crawls lanky-legged back to moisture and reports that the blue remains miserly, hoarding its wealth offshore. The dew’s lips are parched and cracked. She can barely lick them wet.”
Brav-freaking-O! Wow wow wow.
Ah, Kimberly, where would I be without your encouragement, as I teeter and topple over the stepping stones of narrative while the torrent of language rushes by. Hope your book is flying off the shelves and leaping out of the servers :-) I bet it is.
I do love the way you write, David.
That is kind, Mary. Thanks for coming back.
Another amazing and beautifully-crafted piece - and so many beautiful comments that I can't add to them, only agree with them. But the little mole flipper brought tears to my eyes.
You are so kind, Theresa. He was a fine creature and worthy of our tears for sure.