Scáthach
it
isn’t the wild scattered heather
or
that single settled thistle
rooted
in snaking weeds
snarling
and snagging
her
unruly sun-scorched uncombed hair
trailing
unkempt from hill bottom to hill top
masking
rebels of yesteryear
nor
the giant of a woman she conjures
striding
through a hazy uninhabited haar
capping
the harsh landscape
determination
flying with every step
passed
the Old Man covered in moss
no
it’s not those invoked imaginings
that
was another place
where
our gritty ancestors of crumbling basalt rest
their
embedded stillness steeped
in
sensual purple clustered hues
cloaking
sheets of bare-jagged drifting-naked rock
anchored
in sea water
a
bold bouldering shadowy woman
scales
the serrated pot-bellied pinnacle
perpetuating
otherworldly passage
it
is she that awakens hearts
choosing
when we see her
she
stands overlooking the sound
filled
with something gentle we can only feel
despite
the distance we are close to her
closer
than we know
some
of us aware
knowing
she comes
only
at the right time
for
those of us who see through shadows
she
appears suddenly a vision crowned in holly
wearing
a brilliant burst of green mantle
that
settles
welcome
her when she comes
for
even as she holds us
she
will also let go
I’m
Still Considering
beginnings..,
…so
pleased to hear you
I
like bright and dark sounds
that
saxophone screams
something
lonesome
I’m
new here
re-new-ed been before
was
born here re-turn-er
it’s
like locking a woman in a room
with
an angry man
feels
alright now
in
this moment…
…he’s
on the right side of angry
lonely
won’t leave him alone
and
this place stinks to high heavens
doesn’t
that tell you something?
don’t
know what’s ahead
I’ve
lost my sea legs
yes the ocean I’m here
at
the Firth of Clyde
flowing
into the Atlantic
to
you my dear friend
on
the other side
its
daunting sometimes
the
vast infinite width
and
depth the divide
other
times
it
un-anchors me
takes
me down deep within
a-minor
tsunami at low tide
calms
too calming yes
yes calm as the day
Icarus
fell chasing dreams
was
he fallen? did he fall?
smashed
against a rock
I
heard seas
unpredictable
like that
a
sudden change in weather
raging
surfs slap like angry parents
my
mother once
not
my father shocked me
she
cried afterwards empty-eyed
like
a ghost in the kitchen
me
too silently
alone
in the bathroom
knowing I deserved it
I
know these are small things
just
coasting not just
still
there are days I feel I can’t be fussed
I
know I need to re-adjust
re-learn
to trust
get
real or completely combust
then
I turn like tides
today
the flow can’t wait
cause
it’s so good to hear from you
whitecaps
rolling in
my
lips curling a-drifting smile
softening splaying
foaming
high-pitched
strains
on that horn whispering
s’bin
too long
I
catch you on the high note
I’m
switched on enriched
screaming
staccato you got me bewitched
releasing
water keys
it’s
been a long session
sliding
cross rhythms
my
trans-Atlantic connection
SOIL
& SOUL SISTERS
in
a remote sparsely
populated
province
beneath
pristine scenery
skirting
magnificent
mountains
yellowhead
highway
unsettles
and shifts
flickers
and flashes
exhales
a charnel stench
deadening
air straggles
chilling
flight spirits
shrouding
and shadowing
open
feral acreage
foresting
wanton
clustered
carnal
pullulating
souls lurk
watery
emotions free
airy
solace sullied
fiery
light snuffed
and
heaven weeps
moistening
putrefied earth
germinating
budding kernels
growing
thick with grief
mourning
dozens
no
hundreds
no
more than that
too
many
disremembered
too
many
disremembered
for
there are those
forgotten
unknown
unnamed
and
how do we call
unknown
if she’s forgotten?
how
can we call her
if
we don’t know
her
name?
her
twenty-year old body
felled
and
folding
into
dirt and dust
scattering
shadowy-ashes
unearthing
decomposing
sanctified
subterranean
bole-branching
soil-sisters
seedlings
after water
air
and light
mothers
daughters
sisters
ripening
sweet dew-covered
petrichor
too
many
disremembered
or
named
on
a remote ribbon
of
asphalt
a
highway of tears
bisecting
and snaking impenetrable
forests
towns
impoverished
Indian
reservations
highway
16 hisses
venomously
meanders
and bends
twists
and rattles
rustles
down Blackwater road
where
Hogsback lake
lies
still
like
women
and
girls
festering
silently
and
in that eerie silence
you
can hear kisses
of
feeding fish
surfacing
wistful
winds wailing
all
the way
to
the Pacific ocean
a
stunning wilderness
gaggled
with decaying
Indigenous
women’s bodies
soil
and soul
lifeblood
shapeshifting
and sprouting
sacred
hidden saplings
lost
in forests
veined
with logging roads
and
occasional
moose
crossing signs
above
a
bald eagle soars
their
spirits
dense
evergreen trees
flank
the road weeping
semen-like
tears
sorrows
secrets
Ruby
McCann
Ruby McCann: She is a Glasgow based writer working
across genres and artistic disciplines. A recent Chair of the Scottish Writers’
Centre (2014-2017), she is a creative practitioner and has taught creative
writing in the US and in Scotland. She has held multiple writers residencies in
both countries and has had her work performed as live stage productions. Her
poetry has been published in a variety of anthologies and magazines on both
sides of the Atlantic. She is an engaging live performer of her work and her
first collection of poetry will be published in 2020. She was a previous winner of the Mary Boyle
McCrory Award for excellent in creative writing (2004). McCann holds a BA
English, cum laude (2004) from Trinity Washington, DC and an MLitt Playwrighting & Dramaturgy, University of
Glasgow (2017). She is a current
founding Member of Cheeky Besom Productions, a Glasgow based artists
collective, and the Glasgow Literary Lounge, a literary arts and culture hub.