Scots featured poem - September 2009

This piece of writing was selected by the staff at the Scottish Poetry Library which receives Foundation funding from the Scottish Arts Council

The Lambs Weeks eftir the atrocity itsel, When aince the service in the kirk hud skailed, An left us ‘not another tear to shed’, Ah cycled oot alang ma usual route. Criss-crossin thon twa brigs that span the Nith, A snell wuin blawin throu skeletal trees, Whiles tryin tae dispel thon ugsome grue, That lately sae wis etcht upo ma mind; The dreid o parents rushin tae the schuil, Thae anguisht cries at the gymnasium, O thaim whaes lives hud juist bin torn apairt. Thon lass at wark, wha tell’t us her seeck joke – ‘No!’ ah said, ma haund raised tae admonish – Then walkt awa. Ah couldnae bear tae hear. The day wis cauld, sae cauld, air burnt ma lungs, Grey clood hapt ower the taps o snaw cled hills. Approachin nou the straicht afore South Mains, When, faur aheid, some muivement claucht ma een, And suin, abune the wuin, ah heard the skirl That weirdlie won oot frae the distant flock, Relentlessly advancin doun the road. Ahint thaim cam a shepherd, oan his quad, An, dairtin at their heels, his collie dowg. Their skraich grew, exponential decibels, Until their bleatin fillt the air, lik screams. Lambs brent new separated frae their dams, Descendin frae heich pastures they hud shared. Transfixed, ah haltit, ruitit tae the spot, A grim realisation at aince dawned, Whilst roond me thrangt a woolly, writhin mass, A dowie, sad, heirt-rendin leevin sea, That seemt tae tak eternity tae pass, Then, like some eldritch dwam, wis gane at last. Ah noddit tae the herd, but couldnae speik, Then cycled oan, past buddin catkin trees, Pale snawdraps, wanin nou, wha hung their heids, An tried tae fuil masel wi knotless lees; It wis the drivin sleet that blear’t ma ee. from Life Sentence: More Poems Chiefly in the Scots Language (Luath Press, 2009) Rab Wilson

About the poet Rab Wilson bides in New Cumnock, Ayrshire. He screives maistly in Scots and his wark appears regularly in Lallans magazine, Holyrood Magazine, the Herald newspaper and Chapman magazine. In 2004 he published his ‘Omar Khayyam in Scots’, an owersettin o the famous Persian epic. His collection, ‘Accent O The Mind’ wis publisht tae great critical acclaim bi Luath Press o Embra in 2006. Scotland On Sunday said o this buik at the time, ‘This book contains poetry to rival the best published in Scotland, or written by a Scot, in the past 30 years.’ In November, 2007 he took up post as Robert Burns Writing Fellow in Reading Scots for Dumfries and Galloway Arts Association. In September, 2008 he wis winner of ‘The McCash Poetry Prize’, Scotland’s leadin poetry competition fir poetry written in Scots, rin jyntly bi Glasgow University and the Herald newspaper. Prof. Alan Riach, current Chair o Scottish Leeterature at Glasgow University, hus described Rab as ‘one of the best poets now working in Scotland’. In 2009 he published a second collection, ‘Life Sentence’, and an anthology of poetry by contemporary Dumfries and Galloway poets, exclusively in the Scots language, entitled ‘Chuckies fir the Cairn’. He is currently workin oan a film documentary anent coal mining in the West o Scotland. Rab is a leal-heirtit advocate fir aathing Scots, and an ardent uphauder o the Scots leid; he’ll hijack ocht he think’s worthie, an owerset it in ‘the dear auld lallans’! .

Inspiration for the Poem Ma poem ‘The Lambs’ stemmed frae the Dunblane shooting tragedy. This wis an event that hud a profound effect oan aa Scotland at the time.  Ae day, oan a cauld mornin in late Spring, no that lang eftir this event, ah wis oot cyclin roond Sanquhar oan ma bike, when the incident o the lambs in the poem heppent afore ma vera een. The Herd wid hae bin separating these lambs frae their mithers an muivin thaim tae a low lyin pasture prior tae their bein sent fir slauchter. It wis this eemage o the lambs that sae suddentlike brocht intae ma mind the ither human tragedy. It wis a poem that lay in ma heid fir a while afore it goat written (ah dae kindae wark thon wey – the spark o the idea growes then forms, gey slowly aften, intae a feenisht wark) it wid hae bin three or fowr year afore this poem actually goat written (there is an early reuch draft that wis later aamaist totally re-warkt!). There are a wheen o symbolic things gaun oan in the poem, ye could airgue that the innocent lambs hus some releegious significance (tho ah’m no releegious) an ah daur say Freud could hae a field day wi it! The poem won the McCash Prize in 2008. Edwin Morgan said it hud a kindae ‘nightmarish quality’ aboot it – an tho ah ne’er thocht o this at the time o writin it, ah daur say it hus. It is a gey dowie, daurk piece, but sometimes in life we hae tae dael wi events that nane o us are comfortable wi – And therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls. .