The first poem (with its Gaelic original) and the exquisite tiny second one, both by Maggie Rabatski, were published in 2014 in Songs of Other Places: New Writing Scotland 32, the prominent forum for poetry and short fiction in Scotland today (Association for Scottish Literary Studies, £9.95).
SOUP
It is October
and I am making a big soup,
the one you like –
okay, the one you really, really like.
I rose early
to cook with a slow hand,
the ham stock, the herbs, the lentils,
all the bright vegetables;
Emmylou Harris and I in the blue kitchen
singing this soup
to a crescendo.
You used to say
you could smell it
soon as you stepped off the subway from work.
Could its warm breath reach you tonight?
I’ll light a candle.
I’ll wear the sea-green dress.
THE HAY’S IN
tonight
the sun’s meadowsweet breath
nuzzles the stone walls
of the barn
while the moon stares
astonished
at a naked field
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article