a letter from across the ocean

As mentioned a few days ago; it’s National Poetry Day tomorrow, Thursday 6th October - and as per last year I’m blipping the series of eight cards that the Scottish Poetry Library has produced ...

... I'm posting two each day - last pair today!

And tomorrow, on Thursday 6th, I’ll blip my very favourite poem about this year’s theme: messages.

Here are the next two (as pictured) from Jackie Kay and Hugh McMillan:


from Lochaline Stores

Nothing can be hidden from Lochaline Stores,
Supposing the Grocer’s has eyes and ears:
Not an addiction to scratch cards or whisky,
Not a partiality to a bottle of Chianti.
Not a dickey heart, not an icky stomach,
Not a forty-a-day habit, not a weakness for crumpets,
Not a feverish love of the Guardian newspaper,
Not you dashing in for Alka-Seltzer.
Not the book of first class stamps for your love letters
Not you turning back from margarine to butter
Not a stain on your laundry–coffee, wine?–
Not your shaky I’m fine to the daily how are you?

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Jackie Kay (1961 - )

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Letter

Here is a letter
come across the ocean
over the back of a world
curved like a whale.
I unwrap it, like tissue,
and sentences spill out,
as though the seal on a jar has broken,
coils of cornflower blue
on paper thin as shell.

I saw a sailor’s valentine once
in a museum in Nantucket Sound,
a mosaic of broken scallop
glued in a compass rose.
‘Writ from the heart’ it said.
Words come best like that:
in ink or blood,
when the source is from a major vein.

I read, and understand this much:
if ink sees off time and miles, then so must love.

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Hugh McMIllan (1955 - )

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