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Poem of the month - August
Sometimes
(After a poem of the same title, by Sheenagh Pugh)
Sometimes it doesn’t rain upon the hills;
sometimes the gales die down and driving snow
blows over. Then the hand of death that chills
is lifted and we see where we must go.
People sometimes step back from petty strife;
kiss and make up; decide that life
is tough enough; proffer a neighbour’s hand
to help a drowning brother find dry land.
Sometimes we walk the hills in broad sunshine,
a loved one by our side telling his story.
Garner these golden moments while you can:
that is the genius of a gentle man.
Gordon Jarvie
Poem supplied courtesy of the Scottish Poetry Library |
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About the Poet
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Gordon Jarvie lives at Crail in Fife. His most recent poetry is published in The Tale of the Crail Whale (Harpercroft, 2006), Climber's Calendar (2nd edn, Loose Scree, 2007) and Poems Mainly from the East Neuk, Fife (Akros, 2007). His anthology, 100 Favourite Scottish Poems to Read Out Loud, is forthcoming from Luath Press in autumn, 2007. |
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Gordon Jarvie's inspiration behind the poem
'This poem 'seeded' itself subconsciously, as it were under the surface of my wee brain, after I'd read Sheenagh Pugh's poem of the same title in her Selected Poems (1990). It had probably been marinating there for some years before I got round to writing my version. I've found over the years that certain poems do that: they take on a life of their own, unknown to me. Occasionally the originals are in French, and in due course I write Scottified versions. I'm quite unaware that I've absorbed someone else's work in this way: I certainly don't set out to do it. Other poets whose work has set me going: John Masefield, Tom Scott, Wilma Horsbrugh, Jacques Prévert, Michel Houellebecq, Guillaume Apollinaire.
I see this text as one of my 'hillwalking poems', with a basically optimistic take on the world. The walk that triggered it off almost had to be abandoned, because it started out in pretty dire weather and a matching bad mood, but then everything cleared up.' | |
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