da pressit muse

..it wis great meetin
you in the street the ither day
hearin a your news, de new ootfit...weel!
No, I'm nae bein "bliddy cheeky"
and no , I dinnae ken
fan we'll get away for a luik sooth wirsels

Wir scunnered o a this bliddy hoose-hunting.
We gied tae look at a peedie bit o but
and ben de ither day in Birsay.
O'er a hunner-thoosand
for a rickle o stanes and widwormy wood
that I widnae keep a hen in!
The warld's
gied gyte!

"It's the market, it's the market"
mantras wir freendly estate agent; "market forces"
purrs the syrupy solicitor chiel in his fancy
office; "chust pay me the siller" sings Sam-the-surveyor
(who his seen this hoose several times, nae
doobt.)


Hoo's the scrievan comin at? I really
liked the poem you e-mailed.
Tae my surprise and delicht ,I came across
twa buiks by Cree makar : Louise Bernice Haffe*
in toon de ither day.

Her verse is sublime in spirit but viscerally blunt
in terms o subject matter.
That is, dear freend,it gar'd me think;
nae fir de faint-hearted, baith buiks
deal in a brutally frank wie
mony aspects o Cree history
white oppression and her ain ,often searing,
family experience.
Art should mak us feel discomforted.

If ye think this his naethin
tae de wi Orkney then chust consider
oor ain forbears involvement in
de Nor Wast,de Orcadian traders and
trappers who worked de great rivers
o the Cree lands on behalf o de Hudson's Bay Company,
and left their banes, names
and genes ahint.

Here's a peedie fargment fae "Blue Marrow"

We are here.
Here.
Here
Patience,
nitansiak. My Daughters.
We will speak.
We will fill each leaf
Pages of song.
We will be the Loon
in broad daylight
moaning Spring.
The Deer that rattles her bones.
We will come.
Offer us tobacco,
smudge with Sage.
Sit and cry in the Lodge
,let your body grovel
let thirst fill your mouth.
We will hold you.
We will fill your lungs.
We will be there.
Sleep.

For a moving acoont o an Orcadian
lass's contemporary expedition to find and meet her
Cree relatives try:
http://www.orcadian.co.uk/features/articles/kimtwatt.htm

We hid a peedie
run oot tae Dinghieshowe
on Sunday. De wund
hid faain awie tae a lambsbreeth
and the
sea wis like a siller
keekin-glass,
hid was that still

We watched an
Immer Goose playin wie a peedie
Flattie it hid chust caught. The
fish's bodie glittered
in de sunlicht like
a siller leaf kything
in de air as it struggled tae be free
fae the Loon's muckle neb

::::::::::::::::


Louise Halfe's books are:
Blue Marrow Coteau Books(2005)
Bear Bones & Feathers Coteau Books(1994)
::::::::::::::::


Deerness Haiku


Wast wind...
da graceful scrieven
o girse apo de sheld-brecks.