she held the key to heaven

Just recently obtained a copy of the pictured, 2018 Anthology of Scottish poetry ...

... so; here is today's (15th November) entry - a poem by Gerda Stevenson:

 
Saint Margaret
 
There was luck in it that day,
we thought, good fortune rising for us,
though an accident, they say:
taken by storm, she was – twice –
first at sea, driven to our shore,
then at the king’s heart: Ceann Mor
just had to have her for his queen.
 
She came from two lands – one we didn’t know,
Far to the East, the other we did – too well.
Cho brèagha, was the whisper of the court,
This woman more fair than any we had seen,
pale as the pearls I clasped around
her slender neck at dawn each day,
jewelled fingers spooning warm brochan
into blue-lipped orphan mouths
by the palace door at sunrise –
always before she broke fast herself –
giving forever on her mind.
 
She bore our land a line of kings,
gave us Queensferry for the pilgrims,
miracles, peace and constant prayer,
swept change through the old church
with the lovely lustre of her Roman rites.
So proud of her, our king, who couldn’t read,
he had her books encased with gems and woven gold
in praise of her refinement, she held the key to heaven,
he said, and to the labour of our earthly days,
his court’s guiding star in this tale of new ways
told in English from the hour she wore the crown;
for he charged us all to speak her language,
put her at ease, and willingly we did.
 
And now she rests with him in our Saviour’s arms.
I miss her quiet radiance that filled the years.
I walked to her cave today, down by the river Ferm –
her place of solitude and contemplation;
I thought to thank her in prayer – and here’s a thing:
standing there alone in that womb of rock, I yearned
for the old tongue my mother learned on her lap,
words that once rose up from deep inside me;
but they’re lost, the well is dry – it’s like a fatal thirst
that can’t be quenched; and I know now why
my mother called her Margaret the Accursed.

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Gerda Stevenson (1956 - )

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