Birlinn fills the silence

Some time ago I had an unusually vivid dream, a rare one that left me with a positive expectancy for days after. In the dream I wandered into an old dilapidated workshop. The roof had given way while glass and debris lay all around. Drug user’s needles poked up from piles of cans and broken bottles and a constant dripping noise echoed out any other sound. I felt very fearful and had to summon the courage to move forward through the building. Suddenly, as I turned a corner there stood the most beautiful exotic tree, quite unexpected. A clear pond full of plant and aquatic life was there next to the tree which had itself grown out of the stone floor. It was an image of sheer unsurpassed beauty in the midst of decay. A few days later I heard a radio Scotland interview with Colin Macleod talking about the Galgael Trust. I had not heard of Galgael until that moment but thought that the organisation and their tree logo related to the dream and the overall theme of new life growing from an old industrial landscape.

Birlinn fills the silence

The rabble of my dream-world stilled

‘A message’ brought halt to nightly adventures

There I was alone in strange enclosure

Beneath rusting iron beams on feeble tenures

Whistling wind filled buildings,

empty Twisted corrugates had given way to sky

The visible remains of a speech less tanoy,

Dry docks drier than bone dry

A place that once supported kind and kin

And enthusiasm for life’s gifts

Had now receded and grown thin

A tale of the wind that shifts

The solitary echo of falling water drops

drip, Drip, DRIP

Drills a hole in ones heart

A lifeless shipyard, broken glass underfoot

Where the threads of life depart

Used syringe that once contained liquid ‘bolt hole’

A serum to take one to the edge of known time

They were caste among the discards

Smashed bottles of strong lager and cheap wine

Each step into further fear,

the fading myth Wondered what it could revealed to ‘me’

And there with unapologetic place of worth

Renewal in the serenity of a tree

Root demands surface unconditional ‘life’

Branches sway to sooth conditions Inherent in common strife

A primary coloniser to an inhospitable place

Breathing, purifying the air

Where we still hear the whirl of the lathe

A wooden column of growing strength

That sprung from solid stone Points towards a state of being

Forgotten but not unknown

The threat of silence resisted, hammer falls once more

Who knows what the rigors of industry had in store

Building boats now to voyage internally to undiscovered shore

Propeller thrust superseded by rhythm of wooden oar

The bearing fruit and seed of tree

Caste in places that they once knew

And Birlinn fills the silence

Where the great ships horns blew

Desmond Mc Donald Simpson.

This Boat

This boat, made by many hands
Crafted with love
Fragile on the vastness of the ocean

Guided by an infinity of stars

Holds the hopes and dreams

Of dreamers

This boat, made of wood

An ark

Hewn from imagination

Carries an ideal into the future

This boat, so like a crucible

Cradle of kith and kin

Sets one down gently

On the shore of a dear green place

Where the salmon run

Birds take flight

Fruit hangs heavy on the tree of life.

The tintinnabulation of bells echoes

Down through the years.

Mick McLaughlan.

Cold Steel Chisel

Cold______You are a legend
No one knows your nom de guerre.
Steel_____ You are a legend
Surrounded by a monumental myth.
Chisel____ You are a legend
some poor mother's son.

On_______You are a legend
You should be left to lie in peace.
Cold______You are a legend
resurrected to fool other mothers children.
Black_____ You are a legend
Someone should say
Enough.
Granite___ You are a legend
The legend on your stone reads.

Unknown soldier.

By Michael McLaughlan

They were not angels

They were not angels,
Who agreed the purchase of the land.
Who packed boulders into foundation trenches,
their sleeves rolled back, their robes kilted,
heaving stone and wood
With the sweat of man upon it,
Hauling into sight the dream of future years.

They were not angels,
Who flattened the land and built the sheds,
Who worked high on gantries, plying the rivets,
In noise, in confusion, and danger, and delay.
Their floating towers screeching down
upon a slipway to the sea.

Sliding into silence-
Hammers still-
Fires out-
pride- like broken bottles on wasteground.

Reach out for the plane,
Slide your finger-tips here,
Here you belong.
And pride coming back like the turn of the tide,
The wind on the water, each keel slicing by,

And hauling into sight the dream of future years,
Our vision, our work, our mark, our life,
Not angels, but people - the makers of worlds.

Moyna McGlynn

The Homecoming

The bond that was broken
Still held in a token
Still caught in the sigh
From the dream in your eye
Misty mountains
Gloomy glens
Ancient landscapes
And long lost friends
Magical islands
Of stolen childhoods
Foreign cultures
Forgotten tongues
A distant yearning
For a heart that is mourning
Please come home
To where you belong . . .

Hugh DP McArthur FSA Scot
Clan Arthur Seannachie

Mariners Message

Some nice words from our old mate Giles who is at sea on the Clyde Challenger.

On Abhainn Cluaidh's mantle,
From the pool of Saint Ninian's Bay
I send word.
Many Moons in silver waters have plunged
since I last saw you all,
Companions of the Heart.
I think on you often -
joyful salt-eyed meditatations and then as now it fair brings a tear
to the eye!
I hope very much to see you all soon,ashore.

Love Giles

Collage

Thanks to Rev. Moyna McGlynn from Govan Old Parish Church for this wonderful contribution and for reminding us of what a special place Govan remains to be, despite all it's problems. T.

In the early mist of morning, monks wading ashore. Sunlight on the landing stage. They have come from down-river.
There is a settlement here already, small huts, woven fences for animals; some fishing, a few acres of crop.
The water is cold on bare feet, but the land is stony, hard packed, solid.
This is the place. This is the place where God is. This is the place where the broken feet of Christ will stand.

All those running feet. Bringing prayers and petitions. Carrying coffins for the dead. Brides walking with dignity into new responsibilities. Every anxiety whispered into the wood and stone. Unknowing children, borne in arms for the dove to alight upon them in beads of water. Wine and wafer, dry tasting on the tongue, the ambrosia of immortality. Music and words: curling around the beams and the bright windows. The footprints of family and belonging. The touch of cold stone, and all the knots of birth, life, death patterned for eternity.

Hands raised in assent on Doomster Hill, and raised to lift the metal plates and strike the rivet in Doomster’s sheds. High up, higher than ever the hill was, on gantries of wooden or metal poles, they do their work . Fists raised in anger, labour strikes, domestic blows, raising glasses for the pleasure of doing, being, raising glasses for ruin and pain. Voices raised in well-loved hymns, voices raised in frustration. Men calling from the high ships, men murmuring as the hooter calls, and all pour through the wide gates onto the street.

Women shopping, chattering, cleaning, boiling whites in steam as hot steel furnaces. Dragging water-weighted blankets, pushing them against the drag into mangle-rollers. Carrying: miscarrying: carrying shopping, carrying children, carrying furniture from house to house, paying rent, making excuses for not paying rent, carrying heavy irons, scalding to the touch.. Ekeing out money when the hammers fall silent and the men waste their days and strength in bars and clubs.

Civic pride, shops with hats for weddings, and town halls (no less than two), schools where children can learn to cross the globe finding work in new worlds, on Canada’s lake-oceans and Cheltenham, in Sydney, Johannesburg, and Auckland. Lectures, here at the Pearce: on sewing, on making a little income go a long way, on new scientific discoveries, on philology - on hard benches. Sermons kindly or hectoring, hopeful or damning, on hard pews.

Broken pieces: families laid waste, children bruised, knowing little, knowing no love or patchy love at best, without the verb to work, without the doing skills. Buildings fallen into shabbiness and disuse, industries moved on: the unwanted left behind.

This is the place where God is: this is the place where the broken feet of Christ will tread; in all the fallen, broken, renewing, restoring, warp and weft and hope of living.










Moyna McGlynn.