The Collected Poems of Edward M Robertson Read online

  the rosebay willowherbs stand tall;

  then in the wind jump

  like Massai warriors

  leaping to the sky,

  the last white seed plumes

  bobbing on their heads,

  long thin necks stripped bare.

  But yellows, oranges and reds

  wear feather leaves,

  as tribal dress for all

  to swirl and sweep around

  celebrating

  the warrior seed that spreads

  an army wind-borne

  conquering distant ground.

  November 4th 1989 Strathtay

  (After Pam Ayres)

 

  The church is a box of fireworks

  with lights that fizz and splutter.

  There are people who sing and speak up well

  and some who simply mutter.

  There are squibs that jump all over the place.

  Like people you never know

  whether they'll be in church or not

  - their faith is stop and go!

  There are bangers, dramatic when they appear

  - a promise of things in store? -

  just once and then no more!

  Some are Catherine wheels

  that fizz around full of en-thus-i-asm

  but when its time to get anything done

  their place is an empty chasm.

  There are Roman Candles whose steady glow

  lights up the dark world around.

  Sure and clear is their faith, you know

  their love has no hollow sound.

  Some are sparklers alive with joy

  their life is a delight -

  we need them to liven our worship up

  and make our faith shine bright.

  Then there are rockets who soar up to God

  their whole life lights up your heart

  because they go on giving themselves

  and doing much more than their part.

  But all of these fireworks have one thing they share

  and that is the light they shed -

  it comes from the flame of one small match

  the light of Christ must be there -

  without it our fireworks are dead!

  Growing Old

  And there – it's ten o'clock

  and the eyes ache.

  I read too much, the eyes

  are weak – and the mind.

  Once there was light and

  the search for truth exciting

  as bits fitted into a corner

  of the puzzle.

  But now the pattern fades;

  the eyes tell me

  not to look so hard,

  but accept where the weakened

  mind leads back down

  into the dark

  where the ungraspable

  simplicity is not only Love

  but Love

  only.

  Bruma Recurrit Iners

  (The Stillness of Midwinter)

  There is no movement in the air.

  Clear clouds lie languidly on the hills.

  Drifts of transparent glass lie

  piled against the hedge, unmoving air.

  Stillness encircles trees.

  Not a leaf stirs.

  Only sounds move ripples on the still pool.

  Robin song sprinkles bushes.

  Geese overhead meet no resistance.

  Widening circles of sound find

  nothing to carry them very far.

  Motionless the air hangs still.

  The sky is a vast glass dome

  fixed over all.

  The Tower In Mist

  Thick mist makes

  thin skimmed milk,

  the tower is submerged

  yet it seems to float

  with buoyant stones

  founded on a shape

  like a giant's

  coracle upturned

  which sank the day

  before history.

  Looming behind the mist's

  gauze curtains the tower

  has bulk without definition

  withdrawing vaguely into

  a past out of reach where mystery

  is the only certainty

  and questions the only answer.

  What were these bones

  hidden beneath its roots

  only discovered when

  clumsy machinery

  broke their secret's seal?

  Did the circling tower

  like cupped hands hold

  distant echoing cries

  of murdered monks

  or their plague-stricken groans?

  Were they generations of hermits

  circled by the foundation's

  different stones their cell,

  this upturned coracle

  before the tower arose?

  Once this tower

  roofed by a cone

  was a giant's pencil

  making invisible writing

  on the transparent pages

  of the sky, leaving

  nothing legible,

  but, written in stone,

  has been itself its story.

  Yet any attempt at dredging

  pebble-hard facts only stirs up

  a mist of mud that hides

  more than we ever can know

  shadowy forms like fish slipping away

  into the murky waters.

  January

  Switch on the light inside,

  switch on the dark outside,

  these January nights crawl mole-like

  down long tunnels. These January days

  slither slug-slow through greys,

  through dull, through half-light,

  half raising a languid eyelid, only at dawn,

  no more than a prolonged stretching

  from sleep to sleep, simply a yawn,

  long drawn out reaching to dusk

  from dusk of a slow dawn.

  All days, all day keep out the sun,

  throw a grey cloak of cloud across the sky.

  Keep on the light, and keep the dark

  outside. Live January days in bright

  warm rooms, till once again the tide

  of light flows in along

  the year's widening estuary,

  to February, March and on, as soon

  the sun grown strong

  reaches high tide, in June.

  Ageing

  The years increase,

  the powers decrease,

  This that I am so different

  from what I once was;

  when the body could do

  what the mind set it to

  the height of a hill,

  the length of a road

  achieved;

  the hidden valleys,

  the Border bye-ways

  discovered;

  the search for badger setts

  on slippery braes

  accomplished.

  'To relive is to understand'

  to reach the essence, the irrigation

  without the effort, by letting

  the sediment of daily clutter,

  sifted out by the prospector's pan,

  wash away in the flowing water,

  to live again the true gold

  of past experience long gone,

  sprung from the head-waters,

  moorland-born.

  All This Is Given

  Love is not changed by death

  And nothing is lost

  And all in the end is harvest

  (Edith Sitwell)

  How very easy, looking back along

  the deep dark corridor of memory

  to see everything as washed away

  or as sucked into futility

  by time's receding tide;

  all that is left the sterile hopes,

  a sad detritus of dreams,

  as though death held the pride

  of place, rough-ed
ging all relationships,

  strewing the shards of all our schemes,

  Self-pitying fingers scrabble among

  scraps, lit by sickly beams

  of merciless self-doubt; self questioning

  quicksands suck at searching feet

  Did ever I make a difference?

  See the reality – not found

  By seeking meaning or fulfilment,

  but waiting silently, the eyes

  of memory closed in darkness

  till another light's surprise

  breaks in, a rising tide flows

  over all the past with healing,

  scattered fragments drowned

  into a oneness. All

  this is given, not achieved ~

  the deepest satisfaction

  release from the self-grasping

  into the hand open wide

  receiving Love's harvest, carried

  on an endlessly inflowing tide

  sweeping everything before

  up to the final transformation

  of resurrection on the far shore.

  ###

  The Rev. Edward Macallan Robertson graduated from Aberdeen University with a first-class honours. He followed this up with a B.Litt at Queen's College, Oxford. He came back up to Scotland in 1960 as Rector of St. Cuthbert's, Hawick. Prior to his retirement in 1993 he was Priest-in-Charge at St. Kessog's, Auchterarder and St. James, Muthill.