THE LONGEST DAY OF THE YEAR
One word one word and then another,
one word and another, waiting for the
light to come stealing in, you ask what
is it that love dares the self to do?
All he wanted was to put his shoes out
in the moonlight. To hear music be the
saint of laughter again. And all that
time rehearsing his lines in the dark;
the love-mess of it all – when so much
forgetting is always about remembering;
on the long walk backwards to meet
himself coming the other way, but didn’t
It’s just that I’m made of clouds, he said,
so many of my words have lost their
happiness. That endless dream of being
awake forever and there is no one there
How the longest day of the year keeps
getting shorter. And I am too much alone;
if you love me will I love you too, will you?
It seemed to matter that there was no
marvellous music anymore: all that he
could hear one word one word and then
another, waiting for the light to come
stealing in, all that he could hear was
how he lives in the buried talk of others;
inside the long history of goodbye
Written by Michael Harlow
Categories: Local News
That puts me in mind of George Mackay Brown. Was it meant to be about/for him? I puts me in mind of him. A word-weaver – a bit lost, in this world.
I’m afraid I don’t know to whom the poem refers, what a wonderful connection to Orkney it would be if your theory were to be right.
Not so much a theory – it’s just that, when I read it, it spoke to me of GMB – how he was ( as far as I can tell, who never knew him).
Just something of him, in those words and that description of someone being/feeling that way, and then, the ending – living on in the buried talk of others.
“could hear one word one word and then
another, waiting for the light to come
stealing in, all that he could hear was
how he lives in the buried talk of others;
inside the long history of goodbye”
It’s very good, about that way of being. Eddie Cummins came to mind, too.
Maybe it’s something to do with the Orkney melancholy. I don’t know – I’m just sending thoughts.
In fact, that’s what reading this did It meant that I send thoughts to George Mackay Brown, and to Eddie Cummins, thoughts to them and for them, in gratitude for their ways of seeing and being, and how they expressed that so that we can walk with them.
And now, this man, too, has done something similar.
That’s what good writing, or art of any kind, does, I think.
I risk rambling, so I’ll stop now!
I’ll just add – lets celebrate the longest day, and the light coming stealing in, in our minds and in our lives!