Ridgewalk

I have walked the high places, seen

the haze in the glaciated

trough beneath my feet;

I have heard the raven’s croak

among tall crags, felt the winds

keen around my head. I have

trusted my life to a friend, sensed the

taut rope’s reassurance,

known the joy of balance

on the white path’s ribbon.

I have sensed the unseen God in

the fierce, dangerous joy, the

tension and the trust, and always,

always the wind of his breath

piling the tumultuous clouds,

sweeping the pale sky clear.

©C.M.M. 12/01

Arles: Feria du Riz

Photo ©Fraser Shiells, by permission

Sitting at lunch beneath the shade

we heard the gunfire - loud, sharp - 

and then the growing noise of cheers

above the music of the band

and rushed to line the barricade

between us and the road.

And what came next was troubling to

the me that thinks I’m civilised

as horses clattered in the dust

and lances waved and suddenly

I saw the bulls - small, dusty, black

and gone: a swiftness barely seen

as bodies swirled and young boys clawed

and darted in among the hooves

and grabbed and cheered and strutted there.

And my blood raced in sympathy

as small dogs yapped beside my legs

and all my civilised disdain

was pulverised and lay in dust.

C.M. 09/12

This was a fascinating, thrilling and ultimately disturbing experience - the more so because I had not anticipated the event. I'm grateful to my friend Fraser Shiells for his photo - the speed of everything made it hard to capture, and this moment, when one of the bulls escaped the corralling horses and headed back down the road on its own, was especially dramatic.

Night Piper

Photo ©Ewan McIntosh

Into a random dream, only half-remembered,

dances the noise of -

God, it’s pipes! And it’s

three am and I’ve been sleeping but

I leap from my bed and look 

out and there they are: a man, 

pipes shouldered, marching along

the sleeping crescent playing 

his heart out. And it’s not just the old

Scotland the Brave stuff but

an intricate shifting pattern of notes

and he’s good, good, but

far too loud for my wincing brain.

In front of this marching kilt 

five figures dance

yes, dance,

keeping time as they

make their way past the

dark houses which seem

like me not to have welcomed them

with lights, but they don’t care.

Light on their feet and lightly

rhythmic they pass on and the music sounds

more and more distant as the night 

folds back and sleep floods over

the vacant echoes of the town.

©C.M.M.

This happened on the only weekend of the year when such things are, in fact, normal - Cowal Games weekend. The poem actually suggested itself to me as I was drifting back to sleep, but I've taken almost a week to get round to putting it down.

MIners' Gala 1984

I’m riding on a lorry through

the Edinburgh streets. Beside

me is a missile, quite small,

made of cardboard painted

silver. Should be black.

Upturned faces in the sun

stare white; some shout:

Save oor pits, missus –

as if this missile

had the power to sweep away

the English government of the day

and blow it back to when

their fathers walked in

heavy boots, pale in the

morning sun and back,

black-faced at dusk

from hellish pits of endless toil

that now would end

and they would miss. And I

and my missile trundle on,

an incidental sideshow

in Thatcher’s Circus 84.

C.M.M 05/12

A sudden memory, triggered by local election talk and the despair of those who feel government cares little for them. This was certainly the case in 1984, the year of the Miners' Strike, after which the mining industry was never the same again. As CND activists we were seen as allies against the Thatcher government, though I felt strongly that in that situation we were merely demonstrating solidarity - for there was nothing we could do about it, any more than the miners whose families lined the Edinburgh streets on that sunny day.

The Garden

That night there was no

peace in the garden. The voice

beat randomly and wordless

on the shrinking sense as the flames

flickered irritably in the unseen chill.

The struggling prayer faltered

with each startling blow and

died as the God’s voice dwindled and

withdrew. And when the silence fell

blessedly and the night grew still

it was already over, this riven time,

and the marching feet, the harsher

shouts, the drawn steel glinting

in the dark – to this the prayer had led

and left the silence of the grave.

C.M.M. 04/12

Dali's Christ

 © Culture and Sport Glasgow (Museums)

There are no nails

no bonds or blood to mar

perfection. Instead, the figure hangs

beautiful above the flat sea

watched – or ignored – by anachronistic fishermen,

brooding over the water yet

soaring out to embrace

the viewer in the small space

dwarfed by the cosmos that is

the final resting of the crucified.

The humanity is complete,

the only agony visible in the twist

of the arms, the taut sculpture

of tormented shoulders,

but this is God who leaves behind

the tawdry superscription that would

seek to limit him,

this is God who reaches out as

crucifix to dying lips

as benediction to the world

as light into the darkened sky –

stop. Look up. Can you not

feel the wind?

C.M.M. 02/12

Dali's painting, Christ of St John of the Cross, hangs in the Kelvingrove Art Galleries in Glasgow. I grew up visiting it, and wrote this poem after my most recent visit, when I saw it in a fourth new setting. I am indebted to Glasgow Museums for permission to use the image.

Thinking of angels

Oh, do not try to make it ordinary
or even think of credibility -
this visitation by the angel
or many
to shepherds in their freezing fields
or Mary -
no: I see hosts of snowy wings
descending in impossible sweeps
of power, I see
faces taut and gleaming, and those
piercing eyes that penetrate the soul
so that breath fails, and when it
passes there remains a vacuum -
and perhaps just a single
                                          shining
                                                       feather.


©C.M.M. 12/11

Dedicated to the choir of St Thomas, Fifth Avenue, for their singing of A Babe is Born (Matthias)

I've used a different picture here of the Annunciation from the one I used on blethers  - though nothing I could find quite matched the vision I had!

Winter Solstice

The silver tree is a white ghost

in the dimpled white of last week’s snow

as the pale glow in the eastern sky

shows where the short-lived sun will rise

while night withdraws itself to where

a thin moon hangs above the hills.

The coloured lights of the coming feast

Shine in the silent streets below;

The last cries of the drunken night

Are echoes, and the drinkers sleep.

The birds wait, frozen on the tree.

A prayer stirs in the coldest heart.

© C.M.M. 12/11

Suffering General

The original Southern General Hospital, Glasgow

Hospitals no longer have that smell

- the fearful pungency of old -

no: there is a casual air

about the hours of waiting, where

random chat is fractured

and coffee cups abandoned

as if this were a station –

a brief halt in life’s affairs

a stop along the line

before the terminus.

Stop: don’t think of terminus,

not here, among the shifting

interrupted lives of those

who miss their names –

impatient calls and repetitions –

then stumble off to share their need

and leave, calmed for now or not,

out into the grey day where fog

swirls round a half-built tower

and coughing echoes in the biting air.

©C.M. 11/11

The conversation

Under a pale sun - not cool,just
grey and calm - the words
flowed. Dissonance and history,
patronage and eternal things,
maths and music and the links or
not links were tossed about,
resolved and questioned,
worried and smoothed against the demons
that might darken a day.
And all around the earnest talk
the birdsong fluttered in the unthinking light,
the peerless technique of the singers
rising and falling among the flowers,
its challenge merely territorial
its  beauty only in our minds.

C.M.M 07/11

Birdsong in Gethsemane

In the darkling garden

a lone bird drops

liquid notes like dark blood

beneath the quiet trees. And then

silence. And in the silence

the old struggle surges

as flesh and soul pull

apart. The body aches

to be the prayer, to feel

the God’s warmth

in the darkness. But

there is only stillness

and the blood’s song

and the everlasting longing

as somewhere far away

innocence sleeps.

©C.M.M. 04/11

Dark Waiting

Dying light
Originally uploaded by goforchris

This poem was commissioned for the Advent issue of Inspires magazine. As the magazine is now out, with the poem very handsomely presented, I feel free to share it here: the first poem I've ever written to order. I'm grateful for the stimulus - I thought I might have written all the Advent poems I was going to.

As the months slide towards
the winter dark, the first pang
of longing stirs, like the
quickening of the unborn child –
the sudden recognition, yet again,
of waiting and of need.

This deep-felt urge was surely felt
each winter, on the darkest fringe
where small fires flickered in the gloom
and men looked east, towards the rim
where every morning brought the sun
a little fainter, lower, cold –
and now we wait another dawn,
a birth of hope and love and trust.
And do we long to see the Son,
or long for longing, long to kiss
the wind of love, its passing felt
by all who light their candles here?
The child stirs in the womb of dark.
We stretch our hands in hope, and wait.

©C.M.M.

Advent Child: for Anna

Anna
Originally uploaded by Mac44

She came with the first snow,
the Advent child, a small, crumpled flower
opening beneath the hard stars.
The tiny clever hand has minute nails
and closes warm around my soul.
The dark eyes seem serene and filled
with unborn wisdom far beyond
the knowledge born of age.
My world contracts to hold this
shining moment in a timeless breath
as the snow falls and the world stops
and all the Advent waiting seems to end
in this new child, this vulnerable love
melting the frozen darkness
from the winter of my heart.

© C.M.M. 12/10

Ben Donich

Each climb to the high places brings

a question: will I come again?

The wind blows, the crow swoops by

on silent wings, upcurved and still

on the flying air, and I no longer

earthbound feel the soaring

and wonder when the flight will end.

The spacious air mocks this

introspection, calls me to

the briefly precious moment

on this thin-earthed crag

where the rock glints hard in the

noonday sun and the fool’s gold

shines at my fingertips

and the downward path curves

into the purple afternoon.

©C.M.M.

Cowal Games: Midnight

Along the crescent, in the middle of the night,

a hooded figure minces, its tight step

in bondage to its low-slung jeans. It looks along

its shoulder at the road, and then I see

the green glow from the mobile phone

held like a talisman against the dark –

against the loneliness of being young

as other figures seem to taunt

by being three instead of one.

And hidden at the window I observe

this interplay of darkness and of threat

as distant voices call and jeer

and music snatches at the air

in this, the hour of midnight lives

before the silence of the dawn.

Morgan in school

I wrote this ten years ago, the last time Edwin Morgan visited Dunoon Grammar School. Someone else sent the poem to him, and he replied: "I was touched by her words. I promise to 'speak for us still' as long as I am able!"

And he did.

Your words fall quieter now,

Poet, sometimes submerged in

The hornet hum that is

Technology's voice. Older, you yet

Play young men's games with

Joyous random images from

Mercury to Maryhill.

I see you a small, valiant

Bird-figure in canary yellow,

Quick light movements underpinning

Words as fluent as a song.

The circle of young faces,

Sunflowers in rapt attendance,

Bear witness to your potent

Weaving of wisdom with youth's vigour.

Speak for us still, poet, lest

The tide of dumbness sweep over our

Inarticulate longings, and we drown.

©C.M.M. 11/00

Weathered

This poem is the child of the previous post - a development rooted in the same experience.

The wind chases bright fractured

gleams over the grey sea,

the tree-dark green

of the encircling hill -

tosses the petals with small regard

for their fragile beauty.

The sun comes only in

short bursts punctuating

the fat grey of the clouds

gestating tirelessly above my head.

In such a way it too comes -

I cannot call it He, this vastness

with its divine connotations

randomly and so seldom here.

But were it summer heat

always, without the aching

chill of clouded skies,

would I ever know the

sudden searing joy

of unexpected warmth?

©C.M.M.

Morning, July

After the night of wind and rain
I went out into the startled garden
where the white blossom littered
the ground beneath the scented bush
and shreds of tree lay torn on the ruffled
grass. From a tall chimney a gull
wailed in some unknown grief
and magpies bickered in the holly tree
brittle among the pruned crown's thorns.


No warmth to still the restless mind
or please with easy mindless toil
of pruning, cutting, lifting weeds -
no. This is where we live our days
as light flies over restless sea
and lights on us so fleetingly
that joy results, and glows within -
so come, then, wind, into my soul
and startle me with transience.

©C.M.M.

Baby Brother

26/05/2010
Originally uploaded by Mrs Tosh

on the birth of James

Child, you too were this mystery,
this new face shaped and moulded by
its journey into this world’s light,
those dark eyes tightly closed against
the brightness and the gaze of love,
this impassivity of sleep.
Look on the unknown face and know
how passing months will soon reveal
the wants, the tears, the laughter and the love,
the child unfolding like a flower,
the mystery dispelled.

Look, child, look – oh, look at him
and smile, and know the rush of love
for this small stranger in your life –
a new soul born into the world.

C.M.M. 26 May 2010

Touching the past

Ring of Brodgar
Originally uploaded by goforchris

One of the most powerful impressions left by a recent trip to Orkney is the link with a distant past - more distant even than the building of the Pyramids.

Come with me, come to where
the stone circle reaches
to the sunset sky;
come over the cropped grass
where the wind bites at your face.
Come with me to the mound where
the dead are piled
in rickled heaps
of bones picked clean as air
buried with the sky’s claws
their spirits long-flown
beyond the sea-eagles’ soar.
Come with me, oh come.
The anxious birds still call and wheel above
the long-cold hearths,
the sea still seethes and foams below
the cliffs of plated stone.
The past is close – see:
touch it, and know.

©C.M.M.