The Birds of Scotland

On this first summer morning
My mind bounces off elections and schoolhouse gunfire
Gathering instead with the small birds,
Nesting with the birds of Scotland, that place
Now nested in my cliffy heart. 

First of all you greet me, little bird of possibilities, 
Nimble Dreathan-Donn, prophet singer, little 
Brown druid in leaf-dim Edinburgh park
Fixing me with your combative shining eye
Interrogating my return from exile, to this
Place by the wall mourning the dead, 
Mourning the loss of a nation, brave men, those who mattered, 
Little bird of possibilities, little Dreathan-Donn. 

But your neighbor there, Bru-Dhearg
In the next tree, red breast glowing 
Like a coal in the shadows
Seems a little worried, a bit harried by my presence
I see from my field guide that maybe 
You are a returning exile as well -
Though no bird is called exile -
Perhaps you just arrived from Brussels and finding
The rents so high in Auld Reekie 
You worry I’ll come and roost 
Wild-bearded in your tree, that
You’ll be compelled to feed me, bring me 
Bread and watercress in my touristic madness.
No worries, Bru-Dhearg, red breast
I’m staying in an apartment over on Charlotte street
and Air BnB hasn’t taken all the trees yet.

Ah, comic relief from this cold 
Stone on my belly, thistle in my heart
The gull perched on the Prince’s head 
A customary spot judging from the birkit
Stripes running down the regal neck.
In my American generality I can’t 
Tell whether common herring little black-backed
Lesser or greater, or even a not a gull
Acknowledging the skua and the auk
Though perhaps not perched on a New Town 
Monument, unless he was a west coast radical
Which I like to think he was.
Faspag faillteach or faolleg, I salute
Your sensibility and smile 
Whenever I think of centuries of accumulated 
Shite running down Georgie’s neck
And serves him right, auld sod,
For all the tartan stealing phony Burn’s night 
Log tossing toe dancing dreich that
We’ve all had to swallow like our 
Stale shortbread birthday cake from the Auld Sod.

Fleeing the city, the high rent and waiters who
Judge me by my shoes, seeking ancestral ben and burn 
Among Fife barley, I’m astounded at your glowing
Girth in the drizzling wood, Calman coille
Roosted by the coirre of my name, 
Strapping big bird calling peace upon my 
Eponymous hill, I feel instant fondness for you, calman
But regret to say that the frontier dies hard
In my American mind and I can’t help 
Noticing that you look delicious, and now
The Royal Society for the Protection of Birds 
Informs me that you’re a pest, unwanted among the 
Oilseed rape, and they’ve tried shooting you
That most American solution, but it doesn’t seem 
To dissuade you from roosting and feeding 
Nesting and watering by your native burn.

Up into misty hills in a rented Vauxhall
Sentimental we stop to piss in the heather
By the motorway and there you are,
Black one of the woods, rare Coilleach-Dubh.
But, ah my heart, you lie car-slaughtered on the verge
Gone forever from the ben that bore you
No more sweet blaeberry no more will you go
With Liath-chearc to the best cotton grass 
So the young ones will be strong. They say the fences kill you
And the foxes, but I see twenty of you fallen before
Hurtling steel, their tires muttering like the crying wind
On this asphalt gash through these emptied hills
Where you lie crumpled on the pavement 
Oh Coilleach-dubh, oh black one of the forest.

So how, after your tragic denoument, grief 
I can’t get out of my mind, Scotland’s history written in microcosm,
How can I comfortably bring up your neighbor
Tail constantly bobbing, crowding the cow pasture, 
Breac an t-sil  black and white in your fool’s coat, equidistant in the paddock
One by one leaping with abandon, catching insects, dozens of you
Heedless of fence or fox, perfectly at home in folk museum car park.
Slightly overdressed, off to Spain for the winter
A hundred thousand of you and more to come
Perfectly postmodern bird perfectly adapted for modernity
If slightly ridiculous.

What is this the reader asks what is this is I ask in reply?
What should a poem about Scotland be? What is a poem about birds?
Once I could have proclaimed in Latin line panoply of
Species genus order family
But a poem is no nature show
And I’m no Attenborough so though 
The critic declares these foolish stanzas
Anthropomorphic personificating nature fakery
I think them more likely a desperate attempt 
To understand each other, 
Living things sharing this rock heating in the sun.
So take my anthropomorphizing nature fakery for what it is

It is Cathag swooping low over wind twisted trees at Camas an Darach
Black shadow over white sand, water all the jewels of the sea 
Dim islands glowing hills shells shadowed by lapping wave
Cathag rising and plunging on the wind, tumbling over cliff’s edge
Cathag soaring blue eye shining, playing in the wind that wears away the rock
It is the wheeling flock of wondrous birds, the voice of the joyous birds
It is Gille-brighde searching among the seaweed, it is winged shadow
Moving in the pools of a rocky shore.

It is all the birds I never saw, 
Traon coarse-calling for the sun; 
Iolar, clamhan, sulaire
Soaring over sgurr, knife diving by the skerry
You wheel beyond my experience
Gyre above my soul circuit
I seek you now in other skies, other beaches, 
Behind the wind, before the sun.

Then at last, latha na latha, westing beyond west
Beyond islands, beyond towers, riding on the black sea loch
Eala, swan in dreams
Eala, full of grace
Eala, white on the black sea loch
All my yearning has a focus, my strange dreams of transformation
This arm clothed in down where the shirt couldn’t cover
This spiteful exile filled with malice, searching always 
For the willows and burns of an ancient childhood, my 
Clumsy years of discontent, dreams of return,
Song that few ever hear, beauty in omniscient sadness,
Silent with your mate on the sea loch
Eala, full of grace, swan of dreams now to me 
In this hard white country
Far from the sea loch.

Author: Duncan MacNae

Exiled Gael, scion of the Dust Bowl, dweller within Divine Grace, admirer of mountains, I have made my peace with trout and the starlings. Looking for a river and healing trees. duncanmacduncan5@gmail.com View all posts by Duncan MacNae