Valerie Irvine-Fortescue

LIVING THINGS

Life in branches
Woodcut in welkin
Outlined well in
Cloud-avalanches
Around the "boskihood"
Of Solar-Plexus Wood.

It is not June
yet now the Jonquil air
Is breathing everywhere
Like a love tune
"Coniferring" on burnt-sienna carpets –
Pine-needle deep –
Where Love has trod
The Devil underfoot in danger's hour...
The face of each unique soulflower
Unfolds beneath the Light of God
And grows up in the way
Of – possible – perfection...
Unless of course it chooses to decay
In the opposite damned direction.

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SONNET AND ODE TO AN AEROPLANE

Thou cool dark splendour of Perfection's mould
Yet tender as the dove in misted flight!
Reflection of the sun's most radiant white –
Thy strength is throbbing through a heart grown cold
Of aught but Murder, when thy limits hold
Such wonder and such ecstasy of height!
The Milky Way's pale purity of light
Is rent by thy destruction, rude and bold.

A bird is lying upon the grass –
Its upturned breast, where it serenely lies,
Embraces all the universe above
With gentleness thy power cannot surpass.
When shall we hear thee, and uplift our eyes
To see thy wings stretch over us in love?

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AN ABERDONIAN TOAD OF TOAD'S HALL

To drive from Airyhall to Ashgrove Road
      takes little time for Mr. Toad
      while THE WIND IN THE WILLOWS blows.
"He's going to be my Home Help today"
      I said with glee as the grass I mowed,
      and my watch said ten to nine!
I stopped this work and I went upstairs
      to my Council flat – which looked okay
      though the brasses needed a shine!
He came... we discussed our Love Affairs
      as we drank fruit-juice together...
      Then he gave me a document to sign
      and, no more under my tether,
      he raised his hat
      as he left my flat
      to face the outside weather.

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SONG OF AN ACADEMIC DAISY!

I grow beside a granite Crown
whence any seagull may look down,
high in the sky
white in daylight –
perched like a pearl over Town and Gown.

I often long for high renown,
that I might wear a Laurel crown,
and that my words
might be bright birds
to spread their wings and come flying down.

Among the daisies in the quad.
I spread my rays and gaze toward God...
When people pass
KEEP OFF THE GRASS
so I may grow where no-one has trod.

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KING'S COLLEGE CHAPEL TOWER, OLD ABERDEEN

The shadow of a flying buttress
looks like an Angel's wing,
folded – with every feather filed...
Soft, steplike, dark –
outlined on sunkissed stone –
stone of a Tower topped by a Crown.
And if you climb, within these spreading wings,
your view is from beneath the Crown of Kings.

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MAY THE GOOD GOD GIVE MEN...

May the good God give men,
      women
      and especially children
      joy...joy on swallow's wings
      – strength to cleave a cloud
      – top-tapestry of tatters – high
            soaring beneath the
      undismayed, untouchable cobalt
      madonna blue sky.
      When Beauty's lovely things
            and Summer's love
            thrill to the vault
            of Heaven above,
                  loud
      sing the woods, and sigh
      breezes of June wherever swallows fly.

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