Rosemary and I exchanged poems yesterday, both by Norman MacCaig.

Blue tit on a string of peanuts

A cubic inch of some stars

weighs a hundred tons – Blue tit,

who could measure the power

of your tiny spark of energy?  Your hair-thin legs

(one north-east, one due west) support

a scrap of volcano, four inches

of hurricane: and, seeing me, you make the sound

of a grain of sawdust being sawn

by the minutest of saws.

Norman MacCaig 1980

 

Moment Musical in Assynt

A mountain is a sort of music: theme

And counter theme displaced in air amongst

Their own variations.

Wagnerian Devil signed the Coigach score

And God was Mozart when he wrote Cul Mor.

 

You climb a trio when you climb Cul Beag.

Stac Polly – there’s a rondo in seven sharps

Neat as a trivet.

And Quinag, rallentando in the haze,

Is one long tune extending phrase by phrase.

 

I listen with my eyes and see through that

Mellifluous din of sharpness my masterpiece

Of masterpieces.

One sandstone chord that holds up time in space –

Sforzando Suilven on his ground bass.

Norman MacCaig 1967