Untitled
Our Poetry
Untitled by Rosemary Scott
If you choose gifts for me
Forget the turn of years, choose only bright things;
My gold and silver is the Arctic light,
Where sunset spans the world - and arched above
The true Aurora.
I shall tear down light to circle my hair,
Leaving a rift among the stars.
Do not give me manufactured things, but choose
The sudden silence of night, a heartbeat fast with fear,
The howl of night creatures.
Choose gifts that I'll remember through a night
Which lasts for half a year:
The way the blue ice rises as the iceberg turns,
The softness of moss, the lucent water,
The harsh scrape of granite underfoot.
If you can give me these do not make purchases,
And call them presents.
I cannot bear the weight of small things.
© Rosemary Scott 2001
(First published in Women, Mountains, Words)
In Svalbard they do not lock up their bicycles
by Rosemary Scott
I went to Lewisham to do the things you do on Saturday in town,
Like going to Gennaro's to buy Parma ham and olives,
And stopping at Boots to fetch the photos,
Chaining the bike to the fence to prevent theft.
My list did not include the things you do at other times and places
Because the house has no children in it,
And the place to go by choice
Is a cold coast beyond Ultima Thule
Edging the wilderness where no-one goes.
Where exploration is partly geographical,
Involving land-forms and glacial processes
And the habitats of wildlife.
The grey plain of the river-flat dotted with yellow flowers,
The braided streams, milky with rock-flour,
Concealing broken rocks.
The heaving ooze of the moraine ridges,
Slithery above permafrost,
The ice-castles of the glacier.
And birds, scudding low over the sea or circling the crags
Crying in protest.
In the harsh land, humankind sticks close together
Shoulder to shoulder, roped, hands linked across the river of ice.
There are no lonely, no unpeopled places,
Only the tight circle of fellowship
Within the sure range
Of a nine-millimetre carbine.
Solitude is what we bring with us into the mist and ice.
Beyond the circle the great Bear ranges unseen,
A rumour of danger, a litany of near-escapes
Some gallows-humour:
(A polar bear can tell between a tin of beans and one of meat, we're
told).
The danger an inflexible reality,
Dwarfing the crevasses, loose rock, minor hazards for the mountaineer.
We go in forced company,
Hammering friendship out of the force of destiny,
Quickly but surely, like a skilled smith:
Thor armed with Mjolnir, Wayland at his forge.
The country tames us; city lights
Retreat from the midnight sun.
Lean, grey, unyielding, Svalbard reminds us of the Age of Ice,
When we hunted prehistoric beasts with spears,
And lit fires in our villages to ward of the creatures that live in the
dark.
Before we learned to make life comfortable,
Forgetting that comfort comes from the strength of the tribe,
The sure edge of the axe,
And no-one strays beyond the circle of fire.
© Rosemary Scott 2001
(First published in Women, Mountains, Words)
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