I remember India: palm trees, monkey families, fresh lime juice in the streets, the sensual inundation of sights and smells, and excess in everything. I was exotic and believable there. I was walking through dirt in my sari, to temples of the deities following the lead of my Indian in-laws. I was scooping up the fire with my hands, glancing at idols that held no meaning for me, being marked by the ash. They smiled at the Western woman, acting religiously, knowing it was my way of showing respect. It was an adventure for me but an arm around their culture for them. To me it was living a dream I knew I could wake up from. To them, it was the willingness to be Indian that pleased them. We were holding hands across a cultural cosmos, knowing there were no differences hearts could not soothe. They accepted me as I accepted them, baffled but in love with our wedded mystery.
When I was dead, my spirit turned To seek the much-frequented house: I passed the door, and saw my friends Feasting beneath green orange boughs; From hand to hand they pushed the wine, They sucked the pulp of plum and peach; They sang, they jested, and they laughed, For each was loved of each. I listened to their honest chat: Said one: "Tomorrow we shall be Plod plod along the featureless sands, And coasting miles and miles of sea." Said one: "Before the turn of tide We will achieve the eyrie-seat." Said one: "Tomorrow shall be like Today, but much sweeter." "Tomorrow," said they, strong with hope, And dwelt upon the pleasant way: "Tomorrow," cried they, one and all, While no one spoke of yesterday. Their life stood full at blessed noon; I, only I, had passed away: "Tomorrow and today," they cried; I was off yesterday. I shivered comfortlessly, but cast No chill across the table-cloth; I, all-forgotten, shivered, sad To stay, and yet to part how loth: I passed from the familiar room, I who from love had passed away, Like the remembrance of a guest That tarrieth but a day.
I dreamed I was eating a book. It was made from 8โ by 12โ slabs one inch deep. It tasted like cheese but cut like watercress. as I chewed I understood. As I looked around others were reading the same title but regularly, I couldnโt determine which was best, eyes only or digesting it my way. Others began to notice me and stare. Made me feel queer. I was in a restaurant though, a fitting place to eat and drink so I ordered a bourbon and I kept on chewing. I realized their eyes would never make them full.
#AceHistoryDesk – The small archipelago of St Kilda, 50 miles west of Harris, has long attracted romantic attention for its remoteness, with the sense of strangeness and difference such isolation implies.
It is the last and outmost isle, on the edge of the world: a place whose way of life, in the words of Scottish poet Kathleen Jamie, was broken on the wheel of the modern world.
Inhabited in prehistoric times and subject to both Irish and Viking incursion, it first emerges into written history with a passing reference in the early 13th-century Icelandic Prests Saga. There are brief mentions in the Scottish chronicles of John Fordun and Hector Boethius. But it isnโt until 1697 that we get a first-hand account in A Late Voyage to St Kilda by Skye native Martin Martin.
Its population โ only Hirta, the largest island, was inhabited โ has never topped the 180 that Martin encountered.
But it rarely broke 100 after an outbreak of smallpox in 1727 reduced it to 42. Aside from disease, the importance of fowling to livelihoods โ all those seabirds nesting on the sheer 1,000-foot cliffs โ made life perilous. The islandersโ euphemism for death came from the trade: theyโve gone over it, people said, when someone died.
The population grew again through immigration, but a third emigrated to Australia in 1852.
One of them, Ewan Gillies, epitomises the restless soul: he left Australia for New Zealand, before arriving in the US in time to fight in the Civil War. He returned to St Kilda twice โ after two further spells in Australia โ before ending his days in Canada. The islanders called him โCaliforniaโ.
Modern scholarship stresses St Kildaโs connectedness, its place in the wider context of Hebridean history and the North Atlantic sea roads.
Even Martin reported Harris islanders coming to one of Hirtaโs wells for its healing powers. Remoteness and isolation are ultimately questions of perspective.
There is a Gaelic phrase โ Nach du bhaโn a Hirst โ โI wish you were on Hirta.โ
It isnโt a compliment. The last islanders, 36 of them, were evacuated on 29 August 1930. One former resident denounced it, writing โthe whole business โฆ has been the work of despairing Sassenachsโ. But no one went back.
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Let there be spaces in your togetherness, And let the winds of the heavens dance between you.
Love one another but make not a bond of love: Let it rather be a moving sea between the shores of your souls. Fill each other’s cup but drink not from one cup. Give one another of your bread but eat not from the same loaf. Sing and dance together and be joyous, but let each one of you be alone, Even as the strings of a lute are alone though they quiver with the same music.
Give your hearts, but not into each other’s keeping. For only the hand of Life can contain your hearts. And stand together, yet not too near together: For the pillars of the temple stand apart, And the oak tree and the cypress grow not in each other’s shadow.
Where does my poetry fit into the world? Where does my poetry fit into myself? My responses to these questions flow like the blood in my own veins. Inspired by the format of Renรฉ Charโs essay โThe Formal Share,โ my own writing is broken up in sections using roman numerals. This essay will include my [โฆ]
