Mark Ogle Memorial Poem 2011

The Mountain

for Dougie

Did we presume to measure ourselves
The morning we walked towards the mountain
That only came nearer when we looked away?
And why in the evening did our gaze
Repeatedly run over the ridge
Where our footsteps had been?

Time on the mountain
Scours onwards
Too slowly to be seen
By the naked eye.
Glaciers return
Bodies of climbers
Held like flies
In cold amber
For a hundred years
To the sky burial
Of a day-to-day carcass,
A curved grey rib,
A hoop of air.

And we pick our way
Through animal debris,
Birdskull
Crackling underfoot,
Uprooted moss,
The crooked blades of streams.

Our minds laid open to the sky
Annul the chatter of cities
To let something of the mountain
Enter. A gleam of bone
Weathering like rock,
Powdering like lichen
Through years beyond witnessing;

And our talkative selves
Are suddenly overtaken
By the slap of rain,
A swift mist the sunlight clarifies
To set shining the dislodged stone,
The grit of a path to a cairn
Where in mist once more
Our bodies stop.

Our quick glances
Count for nothing here. No wonder
From time to time people vanish;
No wonder outlaw and exile,
Hermit and the mythical beast
Go to the mountain for a home.  

Mòinteach

A’ coiseachd na mòintich
 ’s a’ cuimhneachadh an latha a chaidh mi cuairt
a’ caitheamh còta mo mhàthair
 ’s mar a lean na caoraich againn mi
an dùil gur ise a bh’ ann
’s gum biodh peile de rudeigin càilear aice dhaibh.

Cha mhòr gu  bheil caora ri fhaicinn an diugh.

Mi a’ dol seachad air Poll na Cloiche
agus Druim na Starraig
far am biomaid a’ buan na mònach:
mòine bhàn ri taobh na cloiche
ach a’ chòrr dheth dubh, bristeach, loisgeach
caorannan beaga man gual.

’S fhada bho shuath tairsgeir riutha.

Nam sheasamh air mullach Chnoc  Ìobadail
 ’s a’ coimhead tarsainn air a’ Mhaol
gu Fionnabheinn agus Arcail,
Canaisp bhiorach a’ gearradh an adhair
’s iad cho brèagha, cho soilleir, cho faisg
air an latha ciùin geamhraidh seo.
 
Ach thig cathadh
a bheir bhuam iad
mar a tha cathadh an adhartais
a’ toirt bhuam m’ eachdraidh
 ‘s mo mhòinteach.

Lorgan mo shinnsearan  air falachd fon fhraoich;
cànan mo dhaoine a’ bàsachadh:
ga dhìochuimhneachadh leis na h-ainmean
nach eilear a’ cleachdadh,
ga chall leis an obair
nach eilear a’ dèanamh,
ga fhalachd mar na freumhaichean
a chuireadh stad air an tairsgeir
‘s sinn a’ cladhach tron riasg
a’ sireadh blàths a’ chaorain.

Moor

Walking the moor
and remembering the day I went for a walk
wearing my mother’s coat
and how the sheep followed me
thinking it was her
and that she would have a pail of something tasty for them.

There’s hardly a sheep to be seen today.

Passing Poll na Cloiche
and Druim na Starraig
where we used to cut peats;
light peat beside the stone
 but the rest was black, brittle, burning
small fragments like coal.

It’s a long time since a peat-iron touched them.

Standing at the top of Cnoc Ìobadail
and looking across the Minch
to Foinaven and Arkle,
pointed Canisp cutting the sky
they look so beautiful, so clear, so close
on this still winter’s day.

 But a blizzard approaches
which will take them away from me
 just like the blizzard of progress
has taken away my history
and my moor.

The footsteps of my forebears hidden beneath the heather,
the language of my people dying:
forgotten with the names
which are no longer used,
lost in the work
which is no longer done,
hidden like the roots
which blocked the peat-iron
as we dug through the turf
seeking the warmth of the black peat.