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Nigel Morgan Nov 2016
Waking in the night
I could hear the wind
Whoosh against the window
Cold air brush my cheek

Rising later the trees outside
Were turmoil-tossed whereas
Only the day before had stood
Frozen still leaf-bound

With pavements covered
In the park the chestnut avenue
Has spread before it a carpet
Of red of gold across the grass

In the before-sun light
Leaves fall are falling
Turning wrapped in cold wind
Tossed everywhichway

No way back they are leaving
Summer’s home Spring’s promise
To lie beyond symmetry
And reason’s eye.
Nigel Morgan Oct 2016
Surrounded by the written word
I am you are we do together share
its purpose and its joy to bring
a sense to what we try to say

The call to prayer in words
that Jesus prayed and loved
fall soft between our lips
antiphonally spoken
righteous intoned
is it enough to speak
and yet not understand?

Later at my desk this page
of code describes a music
only I can hear a parametric
lexicon of formal language
I correct adjust compile

Thankfully soon I'll turn to
Thursday’s word-day
joy of weaving threads
not words in silence
but for beater’s slap
And treddles' clatter

Tea arrives and time
for music’s measure
afore a final task
takes hold: a blog
to write of she for whom
I’ve worded more than
any soul in rightful mind

‘Tis only love I say
and search my wordscape
waiting far beyond this keyboard’s
reach to click for something new
to compass all and more
and ever now she is Amen

*For Alice - on National Poetry Day
National Poetry Day, the annual mass celebration of poetry and all things poetical, takes place in the UK on Thursday 6 October 2016.

It is an initiative of the Forward Arts Foundation, a charity that celebrates excellence in poetry and widens its audience. It brings together leading poetry, literacy and literary organisations around a shared purpose: promoting the enjoyment, discovery and sharing of poetry.
Nigel Morgan Oct 2016
XXXIII

swinging at her mooring
the Albatross sits out the squall
rain driving down the loch
its crew ready to launch
the tender to greet dry land
At last ! (said *****)

XXXIV

Reading Ransome
(before sleep takes over)
celebrates this northern clime
Diver or no Diver preoccupied ****
leaves the shore party to find
adventure above the secret cove
where Captain Flint and the scrubbers
make the Sea Bear fit for Old Mac
. .  . but I am seduced
(until she comes to bed)
with Ms Jamie’s Sabbath Day
on Collinsay finding nothing
more necessary to write than
Sea, Birds, Wind

XXXX

Yesterday it rained all day
so the museum beckoned
and we became enthralled
by the artefacts of daily life,
images of times within
the memory -  just. The things
of living mostly at home and
further from the world we know
and somehow cope with stand
testament to a way of life
now passed now gone.
Between bench and stove,
dresser and wheel,
the chest and personal
things, their short distances
collect in memory.


XXXV

sky blue
clouds grey and white
hills green and brown and purple
rocks grey and black
sea green and turquoise
tide brown
sand khaki
all the colours come together
on this afternoon beach
where the tide rising
dogs the footstep
These poems are part of a collection of forty-five written during July and August 2016. Thirty-six of these poems were written in the Outer Hebrides on the islands of North and South Uist,  and on Eriskay. They are site-specific, written on-the-fly en plain air. They sit alongside drawings made in a pocket-size notebook; a response to what I’ve seen rather than what I’ve thought about or reflected upon. Some tell miniature stories that stretch things seen a little further - with imagination’s miracle. They take a line of looking for a walk in words.
Nigel Morgan Oct 2016
XXII

hooded boy
kite aloft
duned beach
turquoise sea
uncertain wind
hard horizon
variegated rocks
suddenly sunshine

XXIII

clouds sailing away
from a sunset
great banks of reflected
light caressing
the heavens expecting stars
far distant a lighthouse pencil-thin
awaits its first flash into the night



XXIV

on the horizon’s rim
far St Kilda waits
two islands one a ****
of rock basalt-black
a stack bird-coated
sheer with noise perpetual

morning boat slicing
a myriad blue aimed
purposely between the two
faint shapes seaward

XXV

Donald
parish priest
of Bornish
died 1905
30 years of age
3rd year of his
priesthood

his Celtic cross
standing before
three hills
of South Uist
‘next the sea
and the call of birds
a life barely lived
resting in peace

XXVI

after the swim
a warm beach
soft fine sand
between the toes
a steady breeze
off the sea
with a coverlet of light
stretching horizon-ward

XXVIII

six geese
fallen from the sky
in the roughest weather
(more likely shot, he said, and
dumped from a farmer’s sack)
feathers bones and intricate
webs of cartilage lie
on these quiet rocks

XXIX

girl with *****
digs out channel
for the boat to pass
to its winter home
a long task a project
for this late-summer week
she has at home
away from the desk
measuring the silence
in shovelfuls
whilst thinking
of what is and what might
be then and soon

***

sea loch
maze of water
****-mantled
granite holding
the moor-side in place

a low cloud rests
curtain-like
on the heights
where deer lie
ready for the stalking

XXXI

white horses
chomp at the bay’s
bit while the Barra
ferry waits
wind everywhere
this bright morning

XXXII

impossible grasses
jiggle on their slim stems
planted in the immediate sand
before the machair takes control
windy today but sun lightens
the shell detritus lining the beach

so fine these calciated shapes
rendered perfect in fractal forms
tossed and turned but so precise
when seen alone
held in the hand

meanwhile there are wind waves
across the dune-land grass
nodding to the facing sea
as the water  foam-faced
breaks irresponsibly across
the Sound.
These poems are part of a collection of forty-five written during July and August 2016. Thirty-six of these poems were written in the Outer Hebrides on the islands of North and South Uist,  and on Eriskay. They are site-specific, written on-the-fly en plain air. They sit alongside drawings made in a pocket-size notebook; a response to what I’ve seen rather than what I’ve thought about or reflected upon. Some tell miniature stories that stretch things seen a little further - with imagination’s miracle. They take a line of looking for a walk in words.
Nigel Morgan Oct 2016
VII

This is my end
surely this is
the end of it all
all I know is here
and though I am
young this is the end
of life as I know it
now and soon I will
see my home no more
for this is my end
here where I shelter
from all I cannot
think beyond this ending
surely the end of all
I know is here
and will be gone

(after a cine still from 1930 of a St Kllda woman)

XVIIIa

house above the hut
of shadows holds itself
against the relentless wind
on so open a shore
islands and inlets beyond
reasonable number stand
before its policies
its promontory land
Up on the third floor
light fills every corner
expelling its shadows
to the hut held
within its sight

XVIIIb

slowly the darkness
reveals less than
a shadow thrown
against a plastered wall
inside silenced from the wind
an image grows as the eyes
succumb to less than light
used to looking Suggestion
and the memory of outside
supply the rest

(two poems connected by Chris Drury’s Hut of Shadows on North Uist)


XIX

following footsteps
crisp in the sand
hour-fresh from tide-fall
now the shadows form
in the weight of press
the imprint mark
different with every
fall of limb and claw
the 3-pronged bird-foot
the sandaled human
step singular one
before another after
another until perspective
conceals and merges
into distant sand

**

silence suddenly
the ringed plovers
hold their breath
then chorus
a chirping as they wade
together in their own
reflections
the water like glass
at their feet
mirroring
movement that light
hop for a few steps onto
a slight but sturdy island

tweet then terweet
inflected upwards
a questioning call
terweet?

XX1

the taste of salt sea
in the mouth
the touch of water
thick sea-water
on the legs between toes
the sharp cold plunge
immersion envelopment

sunlight throws a cascade
of bright steps across the sea
gradually merging into a band of light
ablaze on the horizon
at the base of distant Monarchs
a silhouette of massed rock
rises from the sea crowned
by static clouds decorating the sky
gentle white ermine-soft
These poems are part of a collection of forty-five written during July and August 2016. Thirty-six of these poems were written in the Outer Hebrides on the islands of North and South Uist,  and on Eriskay. They are site-specific, written on-the-fly en plain air. They sit alongside drawings made in a pocket-size notebook; a response to what I’ve seen rather than what I’ve thought about or reflected upon. Some tell miniature stories that stretch things seen a little further - with imagination’s miracle. They take a line of looking for a walk in words.
Nigel Morgan Sep 2016
this space this place
a shelter from the weather
wind the rain unclothed
the deer would huddle
in habitual restlessness alert
except when in the forests’ deepest
dark their great pale eyes would close

today this sheltering of souls
does not escape the weather
but life’s maltreated pattern
its daily flux and disarray
to sit in this observatory
of evening sky’s condition
seeking only quiet and rapture

on high-backed benches
settled as giants enthroned
pale orange light above our heads
glows within an architrave
to reach across the funnelled
ceilinged surface to the aperture  -
a heightened vision of the sky

we close our eyes prayer-like
to meet our solitary self
where teeming thoughts begin
mind images stream
discarding all intent and reason
until we raise our lidded sight
to this single square of sky

travelling the past and triggered
by undetermined thoughts
speech ringing in the ears
words flood and spawn
so intense this skied perfection
we are drugged towards
a kind of sleep: time waits

then a wakefulness resumes
and all is sound spun turbulence
from trees above that calm and fill
replacing or confusing thought
inside the noise of rising wind: a single
oaken leaf is tossed within the chamber
where it skids and quivers at our feet

unlike the deer who lack imagination’s marvel
we take our thoughts outside this present space
this containment empty of distraction save ourselves
our so-slightly shifting hands buttocks heads limbs eyes
towards a nether world we have no words to share
the salient features of this dreamscape we might glimpse
that is ourselves: distinct alone apart beyond

slowly shifting colour from grey of day to blue of night
the small square accumulates ephemeral
memos sent from our seated selves perhaps
to fly with the wind-tossed crows to roost
somewhere in nearby trees we cannot see -
with the handshake of Friends the meeting ends
and out of silence shyly we reconnect with speech
http://www.ysp.co.uk/exhibitions/james-turrell-deer-shelter-skyspace
Nigel Morgan Sep 2016
XI

under the feet
the thrumb and hum
on board (at last)

waiting waiting
to be away
for the Isles
then the
cast off

the shove of movement
the rush of sea air
on the face
away (at last)

XII

within sight this pair
owning the island
of just rock probably
covered when the tide
is full under the moon
later tonight will they
sit until the rising
water makes them move
to landfall a swift flight
away

XIII

flowers and grasses
picked when the mist
held forth over the land
filling the glass
on the windowsill
Tonight they look out
across a quiet bay
their colours firm
in the golden sunset:
sky illuminating
embroidered clouds

XIV

on the dune bank
above the bay
sweeping towards
sky cloud-lit by
sunset glow azure
light pastel blue
pink near to orange
soft lines vaporing
colour towards the dark
sounds of sea near
and sea far across
the dunes sweeping
away from the view
the bay towards a
further sea no ocean
this far further still
further still

XV

Thirteen stones
on a hillside
describing a space
a five-minute
walk around
time to conjure
a very distant past
when the land
then wooded broke
the westerly wind
These poems are part of a collection of forty-five written during July and August 2016. Thirty-six of these poems were written in the Outer Hebrides on the islands of North and South Uist,  and on Eriskay. They are site-specific, written on-the-fly en plain air. They sit alongside drawings made in a pocket-size notebook; a response to what I’ve seen rather than what I’ve thought about or reflected upon. Some tell miniature stories that stretch things seen a little further - with imagination’s miracle. They take a line of looking for a walk in words.
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