Andrew McCallum: Maggie Mucklebackit
Maggie Mucklebackit
The clock repeats its parable as Maggie talks.
The seconds tick and fall, tick and fall,
like waves lapping without a sound.
She is caught up in a memory of
the place from which she speaks: a house, a stair,
a whale brae leading to a harbour
where silver-spilling boats land their catch.
The quayside skirls as women toil all night
to clean and fillet. She talks about the sea,
the clear deep saltires of the firth,
the blether of the women while they work.
She talks through what remains of the afternoon,
until the clock’s dry ratchet-work resumes
and evening comes and I must leave,
and all these quaint particulars are gathered up
like silver darlings in her hand, whose work
has sailed her across a wheen of unfathomable seas.
the muin ast the craw
I spy ayont the windae
a kirkyaird fou o wídae-wifes
a sea o liltin wiltin sauchs
a saicret beuk o foryattent wísses
drount in stanks wi brukken hechts
I couther a bottle o waarm swats
I see a puil o muin-lichtit tears
blinterin swate an maumie
the muin ast the craw
for a wee sangschaw
that nane wad ken i the
roukie milk o the gloamin
aungel brither I miss yer hair
yer tentless naitur’s cannie leuk
ye fell lik rain i the daurk cleuchs
kisst the lips o bluidie daith
sung ti you a slew o sirens
sleekit selkies an wild sea-rovers
ye gairdit the luft wi kaleidoscope een
yowlin oot richt ti the blasphemous nicht
lik a wulf i the gairden
whit for dae ye daidle lik a snail’s silkie saul
the muin ast the craw
for a wee sangschaw
that nane wad ken i the
roukie milk o the gloamin
Andrew McCallum bides in Biggar. He spends a lot of his time turning poetry, from which flinders occasionally fly off and embed themselves in other people’s magazines and anthologies. He has recently taken to wearing safety glasses.
