Here are the concluding verses from Sheena Blackall’s vivid evocation of her childhood years in the north-east of Scotland (Malfranteaux Concepts, 2017, £3). In the course of the poem, memory eases into reflections, clear-eyed rather than morbid, on mortality.
CHILDHOOD IN THE CUP OF A GLEN
I would sit cross legged with a toad in the glen
Staring into its jewelled eyes like a zealot adoring an idol
~
When I swam in the loch I was a salmon’s child
Silver scaled in the sun. I knew I would always return
In thought or flesh to the water
~
Deeside wombed me
My vertebrae are the pebbles of Glen Cairn, Glen Muick
The little tinkling stream of Allt-an-Sneachda
~
I came to womanhood here
A rough wooing, bloody and harsh
Smelling of fish and tin
~
The braille of heather etched poems on my hands
My mind was a quaich, its tangs fermented there
~
This place will be my shroud
My dead lie under this soil
The moon kisses their stones
~
Their souls, like pigeons, curmur
On the kirk slates, looking down
On their bolt-hole, their bone-lair
Their precious scoop of ash
~
Now I am toughened and leathered like a cured hide
I draw near to the lip of the grave
Deeside is the mouth that will swallow me
My kist will rest easy, there
curmur=a low murmuring or rumbling sound
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