Littlestone
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Re: Norman MacCaig: Treeless Landscape
Oct 12, 2006, 16:20
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:-)
It's been a lovely day though, and putting the names of the months aside, somehow balanced between the very end of summer and the beginning of fall. Not a day to be indoors so took a walk along the river - lots of sparrow hawks and magpies this year. The magpies got the eggs from the doves' nest in my maple tree - what they say about thieving magpies is right :-(
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Littlestone
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Layamon: Brut
Oct 12, 2006, 16:28
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Layamon's poem, Brut, of 1215 describing Stonehenge is perhaps the earliest megalithic poem we have.
The stones are great
And magic power they have
Men that are sick
Fare to that stone
And they wash that stone
And with that water bathe away their sickness
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tiompan
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Re: Norman MacCaig: A Man in Assynt:
Oct 12, 2006, 16:34
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If we met , I reckon I’d be
the one to be frightened ,
seeing in you
what civilisation has failed to destroy
in me .
I’d rush back to my libraries ,
my knives and forks ,
my barbers and musicians ,
leaving you twirling your club
and stupidly looking for
the spoor of the future
you think has escaped you .
Neanderthal man .
The closest I can find of a prehistoric theme in MacCaig . Assynt has a few mainly destroyed chambered cairns but little else megalithic . His other haunt , Edinburgh had a few other distractions for the poet .
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ryaner
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Re: Norman MacCaig: Treeless Landscape
Oct 12, 2006, 16:36
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Littlestone wrote: It's been a lovely day though, and putting the names of the months aside, somehow balanced between the very end of summer and the beginning of fall. Not a day to be indoors so took a walk along the river - lots of sparrow hawks and magpies this year. The magpies got the eggs from the doves' nest in my maple tree - what they say about thieving magpies is right :-(
Lucky you. I've been in the office all day. I haven't been out in the field(s) for days. It's quite warm for almost mid-October.
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nigelswift
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Re: Norman MacCaig: Treeless Landscape
Oct 12, 2006, 16:50
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"It's been a lovely day though, and putting the names of the months aside, somehow balanced between the very end of summer and the beginning of fall. Not a day to be indoors so took a walk along the river - lots of sparrow hawks and magpies this year."
Whilst I've been inside all day arguing with some of the most mean spirited, obtuse and thuggish of God's creatures whose passion is to dig up our history and tell no-one - because "they can't be a*sed".
Give me good and honest thieving magpies, and a river instead. We have few enough Autumns (as someone nearly said) to spend a single day in the company of the vexatious and mean.
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moss
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Re: Norman MacCaig: Treeless Landscape
Oct 12, 2006, 18:34
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Littlestone wrote: :-)
The magpies got the eggs from the doves' nest in my maple tree - what they say about thieving magpies is right :-(
Well if its any consolation the young probably would'nt have made it through winter, the parents got their season mixed up - silly birds....
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Littlestone
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Re: Norman MacCaig: Treeless Landscape
Oct 12, 2006, 19:13
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Give me good and honest thieving magpies, and a river instead. We have few enough Autumns (as someone nearly said) to spend a single day in the company of the vexatious and mean.
Aye, true enough. I'll take you and ryaner down to the river and lighten your souls - metaphorically speaking of course (I wouldn't actually chuck you in :-)
Now, on the question of the word 'fall', which strikes me as very important ;-) I first fell upon the word as a student when a fellow student pointed out that, though it was an American-ism, it was a good American-ism and an Anglo-Saxon word to boot, non of this Latin rubbish you understand. It still lurks at the back of my consciousness in a room labelled Whitman; can't use it very often of course but seem to have a distant memory that the word was once used in this country as well as in America as an alternative word to autumn.
There's a place in the States isn't there where lots of English words are still spoken but forgotten elsewhere - I think. Where's Bucky when we need him :-)
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Littlestone
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Magpies
Oct 12, 2006, 19:20
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Well if its any consolation the young probably would'nt have made it through winter, the parents got their season mixed up - silly birds....
Yes, silly things didn't start nesting until September, and their nest was made of about six twigs.
Magpies
One for sadness
Two for joy
Three for a girl
Four for a boy
Old nursery rhyme.
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whatisthat
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Re: Norman MacCaig: Treeless Landscape
Oct 12, 2006, 20:03
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Littlestone wrote: Lovely.
I like coming here, it's like sitting by a stream on a sunny day :-)
You're lovely too 'stone.
Actually my quote you allude to is about your blog. This topic (even after tarting up) is like shuddering next to the Manchester Ship Canal in a snowstorm. :-)
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nigelswift
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Re: Norman MacCaig: Treeless Landscape
Oct 12, 2006, 20:41
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You seem to be outvoted 40-1 so I guess it stays.
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