Rough Breathing

by Harry Gilonis

  to eyeball

  yellow

  light

  between

  spruces,

  sprucing them up:

  orange birch bolete (Leccinum versipelle)

  hunting with

  stomachs,

  with eyes

  at the margins

  of aspen

  and grassland:

  speckled stipes

  tufted, tubes

  mouse-grey;

  under the fell

  where the short-

  eared owls

  weren’t, you

  were

  – but fly-et!

  blewit (Lepista saeva)

  near misled

  by leaves

  into missing it:

  glutinous cap-top

  with an unknown leaf of an

  unknown tree glued on

  and, under the clump,

  blue legs,

  tho’ it be

  warm autumn

  oyster fungus (Pleurotus ostreatus)

  found in the

  skull of a

  stranded whale

  reversing decay

  on rotten

  logs

  turning mul-

  tiple rumps

  to the moon

  small scallops

  from a

  bough

  casseroled

  in

  bêchamel

  dung roundhead (Stropharia semiglobata)

  all

  round

  coming down

  Cautley Spout,

  so slen-

  der &

  pen-

  dent

  on

  sheep

  -shit:

  golf

  tees,

  tiny

  trees

  rain-

  washed

  &

  foot-

  mashed,

  hemi-

  spheri-

  cally

  capped

  & hued

  by

  falling

  spores

  Pelagic

  Ἀθήνη / φήνῃ εἰδομένη [Ody., III.371–372]

  the sea moves

  like music,

  knowing no

  fixed point;

  no true

  pole star

  that must be had

  showing

  *

  wind

  moves sea

  into laced

  swell;

  crests

  slice air,

  foam,

  and surge;

  white lines

  ’f gulls streak,

  strike, stroke

  the breakers;

  waves

  roll

  in s l o w

  glass-

  bead breakage,

  with cullet

  of spin-

  -drift …

  *

  a cobalt-

  blue eye

  with a clear

  pale iris

  cold and

  arresting,

  ‘without the good

  of intellect …’

  *

  the world

  and life,

  one;

  and the

  ocean’s

  maxim, that

  a meaningless sign

  is

  useless:

  yet gannet massing

  show a herring-

  shoal,

  the whole sky

  filled & whitened

  by them;

  the plunge

  of feathers’

  oiled sheen,

  of diving

  blades, as

  massed bubbles

  of milky wake

  rise and

  burst

  before

  their green

  surfacing…

  *

  blue shadows

  on blue

  water;

  the sky

  wave-

  blue;

  light

  gave them wings

  to follow

  glistening

  waves

  in a state

  of grace-

  fulness

  annulling space …

  *

  the wind’s song sung

  through a gull’s

  hollow bone;

  “consciousness

  is not a wave”

  said Ruskin,

  mind moving

  over light, over air,

  over water …

  for David Connearn

  The Inscriptions

  for Carl Rakosi

  for Anthilla

  and for Archedike

  Hediste and

  Hegesilla

  Kallipe,

  Kleophonis,

  Melo

  (written sgraffito)

  Mnesilla

  Rhodopis

  and Sime

  who are

  beautiful

  &

  forgotten

  Window, Light Outside

  to make

  is to risk

  making

  a botch:

  – ‘forgiveness,

  horse!’,

  that I hazard

  anything,

  abolishing

  chance

  by chancing

  my arm,

  not making

  head

  and/or

  tail,

  hand

  fallen back,

  nothing

  made

  through

  courting incapacity;

  instead,

  assaying saying

  the little

  that one man

  reden kann:

  to speak

  of a window,

  light outside

  falling in on

  lime-washed walls,

  eight lights

  thrown

  across the floor;

  or of

  seeing Myosotis,

  water forget-me-not,

  blue

  by a

  small

  bridge,

  water

  flowing

  away,

  fleshy

  stalks

  fringing

  banks

  where the shade

  of willow

  and alder

  is not

  too deep;

  or saying again

  what

  has been expressed:

  as how,

  in the south,

  “trees’ leaves

  turn with the year,

  but only the oldest

  fall …”:

  this

  not

  the

  ‘appearance

  of truth’

  but

  truth’s

  appearance:

  truth, which is

  prefixed

  by privation,

  ἀ-

  λήθεια,

  dis-

  covery;

  in

  brevity

  to risk

  obscurity,

  seeing

  meaning

  in a

  single

  magpie

  over

  an

  en-

  filade

  of

  trees

  in

  early

  morning,

  September

  sun,

  white

  &

  black

  alike

  alight

  in

  sun’s bright

  fire …

  here

  is no

  concern

  with ‘ornament’;

  it is<
br />
  enough

  to have

  an “earthen

  jug,

  self-

  supporting,

  a

  thing”

  set

  in

  space,

  it-

  self

  itself,

  giving

  a shape

  to the void

  around it

  as music

  does

  to silence;

  a jug

  tactile

  as a

  lemon,

  as succinct

  and un-

  obscure

  as a

  Braque –

  as a bowl

  of fruit, a

  guitar,

  glasses

  and a bottle

  of wine, set

  on a table,

  readied

  for

  companionship,

  outlined

  in the room

  by windowed

  light;

  all here

  invites:

  ‘touch,

  smell,

  drink

  and play …’

  each thing seen

  itself,

  as

  cats fucking,

  mewing like

  buzzards, the

  male’s penis

  studded

  with pointed,

  horny

  spikes, a

  barbed

  Cupid’s arrow;

  as White’s

  wasp’s

  eyes, “lunated

  in a

  crescent”…

  clear

  seeing,

  each word

  differing

  as a leaf

  from

  its neighbour,

  turning

  in air, in

  incessant

  motion,

  once

  in an eye-

  blink,

  pale

  underside

  twisting

  in tiny

  breeze;

  ‘had they been

  tougher,

  harder,

  more durable,

  more valuable,

  things

  would be different’

  each

  word

  in limited,

  limiting clarity

  showing

  the World,

  an

  ideal,

  inescapable,

  variegated

  variety;

  to walk

  into

  the poem,

  to see

  sun on sea

  through

  the cloister

  door-

  way.

  Reading Hölderlin on Orkney

  … as people

  are fond of presences, I have come to

  see you, you Islands, and you,

  you mouths of streams …

  Friedrich Hölderlin, Die Wanderung

  I

  islanded:

  and here, at a

  burn’s mouth be-

  tween hills

  facing ocean, days

  chasing days …

  What a riddle

  to pose,

  here or any-

  where, what

  might be pure

  of origin? (As if

  that was, or

  could be, of

  moment, at

  these moments, with

  the drifting of

  sleet, of birds,

  whose wing

  beats estab-

  lish the only

  measure …)

  But a question, still,

  that song schooled

  by skylarks

  might answer

  if it met

  the clear light

  by the Burn

  of Stourdale,

  its water wind-

  feathered and

  light

  as a kitti-

  wake, blown

  off a cliff

  into ocean

  II

  wind on water, allegro

  light on water, legato

  wind on water, vivace:

  and a window, open

  to light

  off the sea, from the sky

  with, above, a roof

  smoke blossoms from

  and, outside, turf,

  daisied

  with hailstones,

  where snow

  holds the place

  of shadow

  III

  under clouds,

  peace; under

  pieces of cloud

  the sunlight

  makes its way

  up the slack of the hill,

  over myrtle

  and heather

  that the Atlantic

  dots with foam …

  In an inshot of spray

  the sea breathes

  up the geo,

  and the hill,

  the cliff, looms;

  cloud is cut

  by its edge, a

  near horizon,

  and the air’s flecked

  with fulmars,

  their impure joy

  the “consciousness

  of necessity”, of

  the world, ready-

  to-hand and hard

  to grasp …

  As snow,

  half-gleaming,

  signifies, the light,

  benevolent, is

  reluctant to flower;

  scattered to lucency

  by salt in the air,

  scattered to web,

  to trace, to skein,

  to haze …

  IV

  In Berriedale,

  goldcrests, they say,

  and woodsong

  can be

  within

  hearing;

  in this deep valley

  what might not

  be forgotten

  in the shade

  of woods, far

  from the burn of light

  V

  On the Howes of Quoyawa, on

  the Knap of Trowieglen, fish-

  bone-widths of snow

  silver in the sunlight:

  to move, pathless, among rocks

  and heather, aflame with

  quiet fire; to trace

  the course of streams,

  to learn to tell

  white hare

  from white boulder,

  the specific

  names like morning breezes

  – and their absence, too, cooling

  as the un-named lochan’s

  slaty water …

  On the crags

  by the Burn of the Kame,

  the bare stones

  of language:

  under that dark light

  no word

  like ‘flower’

  will flower …

  here, twin slabs of rock,

  and it clear that, once,

  a rocking-

  stone sat,

  poised, local,

  wavering

  between the total

  and the particular,

  set wobbling

  by the weight

  of the immanent

  moment,

  by thought

  rocked

  as if settled

  on water:

  on a mountain

  on a slope

  on a hill

  adrift

  in un-

  certain sea

  without ebbtide

  without oar

  without rudder

  VI

  restless,

  the burns,

  the wind,

  the tide;

  lazier,

  light


  fades

  into night,

  into

  cloud’s

  radiant

  haze

  and tulli-

  menting stars

  … both buoyed and clever

  but cross-grained, lop-

  sided to manage: turning

  round and round the man-

  œuvre she was best at, little

  and dancing, sea-tossed;

  she seemed to find her head again –

  though even a small change

  in the disposition of her weight

  produced violent changes

  in her behaviour;

  how immensely tall

  everything looked

  from my low station

  in the coracle …

  Pibroch

  for Sorley Maclean

  I am only that Job in feathers, a heron, myself

  Hugh MacDiarmid, ‘Lament for the Great Music’

  urlar

  a heron landing

  on top of sea-wrack

  folding wings

  attending what’s near

  on stones of the ebb-shore

  seeing slippery ocean

  hearing sea swallowing

  brine chafing pebbles

  seeing cold water

  listening to uproar

  breaking on slabs

  a restless sea

  ath-ruith [thumb-variation / theme]

  heron

  on wrack

  folding wings

  attending

  on an ebb-shore

  seeing ocean

  hearing sea

  chafing pebbles

  seeing water

  hearing uproar

  on slabs