in the hurt world

Here's the third, and final, of the new poetry volumes I picked up whilst on holiday recently - actually, this one is really a series of short-stories, in poetic form, by Robin Robertson ...

... I was delighted to see a signed-copy of this recent 2020 publication in a bookshop in Stromness - I reckon the chances of finding such, for general sale, in Edinburgh might be pretty slim!

This excellent review will help explain some of the background to the volume - and here is one of the poetic stories from within:


BEFORE THE DONNACHAIDH FALLS

I watched a boy left on the cold strand,
I went into the shape of a red stag,
saw two worlds with the two sights
- dreaming my crimes and my punishments -
mad for death in the eel-wood,
witched on the moor to a revenant,
I went to the shape of a seal, a goat,
in the hurt world, at its ragged edge,
where a boy is fetched from the water.

*

I went into the shape of water,
the shape of a wave on the black shore,
moving myself through the blue cauldron
and the fiery pools
on the way to the gorge
and the Donnachaidh Falls.

The river in me is black.
I an the god, the beast that leaves no prints,
the pounce of wind on the sea, that place
where the lake darkens
and the surface breaks. I went,
taking the shape of water.

A man, a woman, then I turned to a starling,
mackerel, otter; I made the shape
of a heron, lobster, river-trout, fox,
an eel, a rabbit, a goshawk,
I changed to the shape of a deer
and stayed that way.

I made myself into fire, horned with flame,
I fell like sleet, like a mist of arrows,
rankling arrows, wing to wing;
I fell like forests, cities, whole kingdoms,
I forged myself into the blue blade
that made my wound.

Failing now, I am making a ghost - the long
flame of a ghost - tying all these bird-wings
to my back and arms
and climbing the cliff, right to the roaring top
and I am there, and you can see - see
the Donnachaidh falls.

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Robin Robertson (1955 - )

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