The Twelve Days of Christmas: Tinker Talk George Mackay Brown I saw the four shepherds, black In the sun’s ruin. Four star-cut shadows, soon. Folk going to Kirkwall to pay the tax, Cart after cart. We trailed behind, packs clanging. I stood awhile at the shore. Three ships Quested by needle and hidden star. Fire on the quarry-stone rooted, A winter rose. Butterflies of snow everywhere, a gray whirl. Our donkey danders Up small roads To poor crofts. We offer cheap enchantments. We chew limpets. Their peat smoke Cures the sea silver. A scatter, struck gold, over barn floors. The islands white whales in the snow. The rook on the branch Had black thorns in his throat. I thought I heard a night cry, a bairn Poorer than me. A white dream, surely. In the street of Kirkwall Talk of troubles. Soldiers in the slush, kestrel-headed. I saw the shepherds. One Folded a shivering lamb. They lingered at the door of the inn. The sun was a shuttered hovel Last time we passed. Look now, new bright roofbeams! We took pans and mirrors to Hamnavoe. Three foreign skippers, The pier heaped with bonded cargoes.
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Paperback | Pub: 03 Jun 2021£12.99In this new Selected Poems, Kathleen Jamie explores the multi-faceted world of George Mackay Brown’s Orkney, the poet’s lifelong home and inspiration. George Mackay Brown’s concerns were the ancestral world, the communalities of work, the…
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E-Book | Pub: 03 Jun 2021£7.99First published in 1969, An Orkney Tapestry, George Mackay Brown’s seminal work, is a unique look at Orkney through the eye of a poet. Originally commissioned by his publisher as an introduction to the Orkney Islands, Brown approached the…
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Paperback | Pub: 03 Jun 2021£12.99George Mackay Brown was a master of the short story form and produced a steady stream of short fiction collections, starting with A Calendar of Love (1967) and include A Time to Keep (1969) and Hawkfall (1974), as well as his poetry collections and…
