|
Angela Cleland
Volume 4 Issue 16 April 2008
Angela Cleland's Poetry
Collection In here, the Menagerie was featured in April 2008 issue
as Poetry Collection of the Month.
Poetry Collection of the Month: Angela Cleland's
In here, the Menagerie
 
Poets' Letter on And in here, the
Menagerie
''Angela is a poet of a living
rainbow made of images, colours, senses, myths and melancholy self
awareness and thus she gives you poetry of depth and breadth as well
as dimensions! There are layers of lights and darkness, there are
levels of salts and sugars and surely there are degrees of
separation and longing as well as heights of hopes, dreams and
optimism.'' Book Reviews: Poet's Letter, February 2008
www.angelacleland.co.uk
The Second Fall of the Eagle Stone: Angela Cleland
Volume 4 Issue 16 April 2008
“Coinneach Odhar
foretold...that Loch Ussie would ooze up through the well and flood
the valley below to such an extent that ships could sail up to
Strathpeffer and be fastened to the (Eagle Stone); and this would
happen after the stone had fallen three times.
“The Eagle Stone has already fallen twice, and on the second
occasion the Cromarty Firth flooded up to the old County Buildings
in Dingwall.”
(The Propechies of the Brahan Seer, Alexander Mackenzie)
Right enough, the stone lay flat,
Pictish eagle recalling the sky,
luck drained from its sculpted horseshoe –
yes, they should have let it lie.
But the council members' socks were wet,
so how could they sniff at the seer’s sign?
They’d fix the Eagle Stone upright
to make sure it stayed cursed this time.
Two held it up, two dug, two ran
to the builders, mixed, and filled the trench,
planned and built a small field round it,
eight foot square with a barbed wire fence.
They drank tea, two by two, in shifts,
each helped to hold the stone up (squint);
when the concrete set, they wiped their hands,
and went home. They've not been back since.
Now every night, as they sleep deep,
the concrete cracks a little more
the Brahan Seer turns in his barrel of tar
and the waters swell at the Cromarty's shore.
Yet they believe they've fixed it
and will not wake till they bash their heads,
on their low ceilings one dreich night
when the swollen firth floats up their beds.
Copyrights
remain with the authors
| 
