Burns

[hillwalker]

BURNS

The wind this morning,
fresh enough to foul the loch
with fish-scale flecks
of weathered slate and burnished mica,
failed to carry news of crackling heather
or the scent of frailest blue and white
expanding into plumes of amber.

A single cuckoo calling time…..
then later at the bar;
four deep in tourists,
glasses raised to toast the bard himself
in measured drams
that taste of peat and smoke,
not one is sharp enough to see the joke.

H

[PrinceMyshkin]

Add to those ignorant tourists, one colonial! I didn't get the joke either though I very much enjoyed the rich play of fricatives and "ks" sounds.

I'd have quoted the joke about the "Serious Burns Unit" in an Edinburgh hospital but will save it until after others have paid tribute to this characteristically well-crafted poem.

[yuka]

well, where's the joke?
I am not sharp enough to see it. something beyond my understand.

[Skia]

Drum Roll please.... And the joke is..... !!!!!
Well, what is it :P
Sorry I'm not that talented.

Awesome Poem though. I agree with Prince :D

[hillwalker]

There was a clue in the title – @Prince, you’re getting warm, although the term ‘joke’ is perhaps inviting the reader to expect more from this poem than was intended. So don't expect to fall from your chairs laughing.

It was written this morning on the spur of the moment – after ten days of unseasonably glorious weather parts of the surrounding hills (unspoilt wilderness) have caught fire and become swathed in spectacular clouds of smoke.

Last night I heard some visitors to the area complaining that the ‘smog’ (!!!) had spoilt their day rather – obscuring the views. These would no doubt be the same people who drink malt whisky to demonstrate their sophisticated palates, marvelling at its peaty, smoky flavour, and of course praise the Scots national poet, Robert Burns.

Ah, well. A little too ironic maybe, @Yuka and @Skia, but thank you both for reading this all the same.

H

[billl]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YKUOB8MN4Kc&feature=related

[Hawkman]

Well I got it hill, and enjoyed the poem too. By the way, although not permissable after the end of April, those who manage Grouse moors would have been conducting controlled burns of heather to stimulate fresh growth and to give the birds ideal nesting habitat. Swaling the moors is something we do down here too, but it has been controversial of late.

Live and be well - H

[hillwalker]

Thanks @billl for your spontaneous response.

@Hawk - I think there has been an element of controlled firing here as well, possibly contributing to the problem. They were evacuating properties 3 miles up the road from here last night but the wind has since dropped and most of the outbreaks are now further south.

Who'd have thought we'd be hoping for a litle summer rain?

H

[blank|verse]

And here was me thinking the 'joke' was that they were all about to be burned to death by the fire in the first stanza – while toasting 'Burns'! I'm bitterly disappointed now, and demand a rewrite! :) (Perhaps I was thinking of 'The Long Home' by the Scottish poet Robin Robertson, in which the drunken protagonist staggers back to his house and passes out, 'sleeping like a log with his head in the fire'.)

This is a very good 14-line poem, hill, with a pun on the Ploughman Poet, but in a way it's a shame you didn't sit on it for a few days more, and let it mature like a fine whisky. I think you should continue working on it, because the poem certainly deserves it. That people aren't really getting the 'joke' is a bit of issue, I think.

There's some great imagery in the first stanza. The second line reminded me of Macbeth's oxymoronic: 'So fair and foul a day', something I'm inclined to believe is a deliberate reference to the 'Scottish play', supported by the phrase 'failed to carry news' which has (negative) echoes of the 'bloody man' who carries news of Macbeth's gallantry to Duncan.

I had an issue with this at first – fire needs wind to travel, so without it, what else would have (metaphorically) carried its news? (Why am I suddenly hearing David Bowie?) But I presume the fire was lit after the morning wind, so fair enough. But I think it was the foregrounding of this that led me to my sick conclusion! The other slight issue I have is with the 3-line subordinate clause, which does go on a bit too long. (Which is ironic given the length of this post, I know.)

(And I'm reminded here, in my usual Tourette's-like fashion, of Wind by James Fenton (http://www.poetryarchive.org/poetryarchive/singlePoem.do?poemId=5577), in which the wind is imagined 'Bending the ear of the hedgerow with stories of fire and sword'.)

As Prince pointed out, the guttural k-sounds, introduced with lines 2's 'loch' run through the poem like a stick of rock. And the 'mica – heather – amber' half-rhymes of the first stanza work very lyrically. Lines 4-7 are nicely balanced, (roughly) four-stress lines of free verse and work very well. (And it's well worth listening to the James Fenton poem to hear a great example of strong, rhythmic free verse.)

I've not read a great deal of Burns's poetry, so there might be other references, but I'm sensing a pun with 'mica' on that "wee, sleekit, cowerin' tim'rous beastie".

The second stanza is weaker. I think you should revisit the punctuation of this bit:

A single cuckoo calling time…..
then later at the bar;
four deep in tourists,
As it stands, it reads strangely. (And three dots makes an ellipsis, a fourth indicates a full stop. Five is just weird! :))

I'm not sure why the 'single cuckoo' appears, it doesn't really add much to the poem. Its solitude does have overtones of Wordsworth's The Solitary Reaper (http://www.wordsworth.org.uk/poetry/index.asp?pageid=237) and perhaps also invites an environmental reading: that the destruction of natural habitat is causing the 'single' bird, once synonymous with Spring, to 'call time'.

The editor in me wants to tighten the last lines, thus:

glasses raised to toast the bard
in measured drams of peat and smoke.
Not one is sharp enough to see the joke.
but I think they're ok as they stand – I guess it depends how bothered you are about sticking to the magical 14 lines (but whether they make this a sonnet is debatable!).

Overall, I think this is a great effort, really enjoyable to read, hill, but perhaps one you should keep working on and do justice to as I think it deserves it. b|v

[Delta40]

I liked it for its rich description and flavours Hill, especially when read with a rolling scottish tongue!

(Prince I would love to hear the joke on the serious burns unit in Edinburgh though...)

[Jerrybaldy]

Honesty that I will disguise as modesty prevents me from recalling how I got this at once.
A pleasure to read as always, Hill.

[IceM]

I'm with Delta, I appreciated it for the imagery and criticism it had within. I didn't get the joke, but I didn't know the Scottish national poet was Robert Burns--I'm still reading older volumes of American Poetry and wouldn't have known anyways. From my appreciation, I found it quite good.

[hillwalker]

Thanks for your comprehensive response @b|v – the punch line (or lack of one) is a moot point and my intuition tells me you are correct about acting in haste as well. I rarely post anything on here that has not been set aside for a week or two to allow my subconscious time to dismiss it. Then I revisit and revise. This one, however, was ‘hot off the press’ (more feeble punning I’m afraid) in response to our wildfires and a morning spent watching the hills go up in smoke.

A sonnet? – never. Hence the conspicuous split into a pair of 7 line stanzas.

But there were attempts to insert one or two sly references to Scotland. I half remembered the Macbeth quote, and the smoke that began as plumes of blue then white were meant to reflect the colours of the national flag (before denser clouds of amber obliterate all). No politics here of course.

Fire needs wind to travel indeed – but it was the sound of burning and banks of smoke filling the sky that would have carried the news to those ‘tourists’ alert enough to use their senses.

The cuckoo 'calling time' was a direct reference to the one I heard that morning (the only bird within earshot in fact) – and I felt it was very apt – a harbinger, as you say, of a new season. But I also wanted to change the focus of the second verse to inside the bar where ‘time is called’ when patrons are asked to drain their glasses and depart.

There are no intentional references to any of Burns poems – but I’m amused by your persistent ability to come up with so many links to other poets’ work. It shows how painstakingly you read our work and the efforts you put into generating meaningful feedback. Thanks so much

@Delta and @IceM – glad you enjoyed it for what it was. Just a poem about sitting beside a loch watching some hills catch fire.

And @Jerry – sorry I failed to totally bamboozle you with this one. I must be slipping. Thanks again for your kind words.

H

[AuntShecky]

I got the pun from the title. The funniest part was the scene later in the tourist-trap pub in which the "smoky" taste didn't deter the patrons from drinking the national libation anyway.


Even though me "perticuler" neck o' the woods has plenty of scenic wonders, I envy the speaker of your poem --as well as the Bard himself --for your lochs and your heather.


Though not to the extent of the West Coast of the U.S., there used to be "controlled burns" in the fields outside the scrubby town in which I spent me youth. Now those fields are all shopping centers and corporate complexes named for the
erstwhile woodlands and wetlands that once occupied the area. The apartment complex where I now reside is named after the forest which was bulldozed to build the place. No lie!

If you had to choose, would you be takin' Nature or poetry now? I don't want to choose. " I want both!" as the little kid in Delmore Schwartz's poem cried. "Both!"

"Nature and books belong to the eyes that see them."
--Ralph Waldo Emerson

[hillwalker]

Thanks for reading @Aunty - I'm fortunate that in my neck of the woods shopping malls are unlikely to appear here within the next millenium. We're right out on the edge - and fortunate for being here.

H

[Wendy M]

Well I must say I like this poem hillwalker, quite enchanting! :)

[hillwalker]

Thanks so much @Wendy.

H

[blank|verse]

the smoke that began as plumes of blue then white were meant to reflect the colours of the national flag (before denser clouds of amber obliterate all). No politics here of course.H
Ah! Should have spotted that one! Nice touch. And ironically, I considered writing a line in my 'Flags' poems about how older flags with the blue coming away had been replaced (something which now seems more prescient after yesterday's elections).

A sonnet? – never. Hence the conspicuous split into a pair of 7 line stanzas.
Stranger things have happened to the sonnet than being split into two equal stanzas, believe me! (Look at what the Earl of Surrey did to it for starters...)

And I would have put money on that mica - mice pun! Thanks, b|v.

[hillwalker]

(something which now seems more prescient after yesterday's elections).

Thanks @b|v - not that I was expecting quite such a revolutionary change to happen mere days after posting!

H

PS - off to listen to Don Paterson at the Ullapool Book Festival in a couple of hours time. I'll pass on your regards.

[firefangled]

I missed reading such fine poems the last few months. I was out of town and while gone lightning fried my computers. Fortunately just the motherboards and I salvaged the drives.

The joke, I'm sure, lost most of its humor on me. However, I loved the scenes you paint here and the sounds when read aloud.

You live in a very enviable place.

[hillwalker]

Thanks @ff - I do indeed.

H

[blank|verse]

PS - off to listen to Don Paterson at the Ullapool Book Festival in a couple of hours time. I'll pass on your regards.
I'm quite envious! The Big D and I go waaay back.

No, only joking, I've never met him. Hope you enjoyed the festival.

[hillwalker]

Brilliant day - VM to follow.