Stornoway

Steòrnabhagh
Oh, Stjórnavagár
The place where old testaments meet
With Viking religion and cosmology
Where the mad thinkers laid anchor
In the bay of stow-age
And sought the universal order
To go where joy rises from the perfect harbour
From the pages of sagas and from rhododendrons
On glistening slopes that shed the ancient tears
That run softly then swiftly then torrent
Salty into the calm inky blue purple cuan
Year after year for the clan feudings
Then Matheson’s clearances
(The tinkling on the shiny rocks
The shillings for the scowls)
And closest to home
The Iolaire oh woe
That drew a dark cloud over Lewis
Like an undertaker’s shroud
That only in these recent times
Has been lifted aside by the gentle eulogies
Revealing beneath long hidden
Renewed unsullied Beauties

History like Cosmology
Is a circle
A circle of circles within circles
Crescents around moons
Cearcallan
One as infinite as unbound nothing
The other as closed as seashell
Where we are taught
To unpick the karmic loom
And re-emerge: even beyond the wee self
Gigantically important long unseen
As she-he is
In Unity and One Is-ness
Working henceforth for God
On the Incrementals of Being
Breathing in as the Infinite breathes out
Exhaling as the Infinite gathers in
Our unworthy imitations
Crashing as broken pots of clay
On hard cryptic stones
Crouching down over our bits and cracks
So joyous at our crackedness
Ashes and dust and blood and bones
More so in Man a spark within
Ever yearning and restless for Home
In Stornoway