The solstice poem

Posting today for the winter solstice, this poem took its inspiration from William Dunbar, that marvellous Makar, who may or may not have taken his surname from the town where I now live. It's known his family had land in the area. At any rate, I like to think there's a connection. This is a dark poem, and I make no apology for that. Sometimes it really is dark.

This poem was written in 2009 and first published in The floorshow at the Mad Yak Café (Red Squirrel Press, 2010).

The Low Point

(after ‘A Meditatioun in Wyntir’, by William Dunbar, c 1460- c 1520)

“Dirk and drublie days” right enough,

but the heavens are not always sable –

some days there are true skies, and a wind

shifted from Siberia, to seek unfurnished skin.

Today the longer dark hours are filled

with entertainments then curtailed. It’s hard

to imagine what true darkness meant

for plays, poems, music – summer pursuits all.

Scratching by candle, each scrivener wrought

on quires of deckled paper, by goosequill and gallol,

words of wisdom, terms of love and learning,

some meters of beauty to catch future’s eye.

Warring motives lay on from every side.

Despair’s the easy one now, so much bad news

in these cold times, suggest the one

begets the other. Patience dismissed,

and fortune damned – predestiny leaves no room

for innocent actions. We may as well be doomed

as blessed, and with an equal chance. Causality

is on a winter break, along with warmth and light.

Slyly, with some pretence of favour, chilly whispers

question why I carry forward a life that soon

I’ll leave behind, with loves and friendships

broken links, unconnected leads and empty ears.

The forgetfulness of age is a brotherly service,

for remembrance of ourselves in youth

would give us pain – the way we were,

the things we did, the chances missed.

And death to come is final leveller;

low or high, we similarly stoop to enter

the same one-way system, a singularity,

the dimming doorway to a hall of nothing.

But yet, four minutes today, five tomorrow,

the nights imperceptibly shorten, and at some point

I’ll know times have changed, that summer pleasures

lie ahead, and will return. The ball rolls round.

Copyright  © Colin Will, 2009, 2010

The New Year poem

I don't celebrate Hogmanay - never mind why. I prefer to go somewhere with Jane for a walk in surroundings new to us or familiar, with a piece-box of salmon sandwiches (pink salmon, of course) and a flask of black coffee. It's been our thing for so many years that I've forgotten when it started.

This poem was written in the mid-1990s and published in 1999 in the poem-card Roundabout Livingston. The poem-cards were collected and put out as a Kindle e-book as Recycled Cards (available from Amazon).

The Ne'erday blaws

With no time for boozy sentimentality
we picnic by the sea each year.
Seeing existence as continuous
we have now no need of bells, besides,
there are, in each of us,
too many bitter thoughts
and sad reflections at this time.

Better to be blown by the first gusts of January,
seeing a brown and silty sea,
mounded by the gales,
appearing higher than the roadway.
We walk through an empty Culross,
discoverers of a new history.
We smile at each other
as rain slaps our faces,
crazy in alone being here
and delighting in being alone
but for the sermon-ready rooks
hopping solemnly in the shelter of the abbey ruins.

At North Berwick, past the socket
of an old eruption - green ash and purple blocks -
we turn a corner and hear the clicks
of crossbills feeding in the stunted pines;
on the sands a vortex of waders dodges each wave.

In Crail harbour
a seagull becomes part of the reflection,
paddling through windows, walls and lobster-pots.
It pauses before a mountain of floating snow
pretending to be a cloud -
the alchemy of winter skies.
In the sunset we drive home,
the light dimming quickly
as we cross the bridge.
The flicking cables make
a silent film of our flight
arching over a glittering Forth.


We walk through our local streets
seeing "For Sale" signs like corpse-markers
on a medieval battlefield.
The season calls for the placement of tokens
in graveyards - a colourful splash,
for Scotland's towns are mostly drab,
dull dwelling-places merely.
It reminds me of Black Forest window-boxes -
all those salvias defying the grim green spruce.
In our first winter in Mid Calder,
walking through the foggy woods
I heard, unseen, the calls of whooper swans,
an eerie sound at the time,
but no more significant than
"Here's tae us, wha's like us?"

"See yis a' next year?"
And I don't think.

We'll be looking out to some sea,
planning the fierce joys of sudden summers,
the new sights and novelties
reflected in each other,
for what we do best
we do best together.

At our ease we've grown,
and growth, if anything,
is what is meant by
what we are.

Copyright © Colin Will, 1999, 2015