by Edwin Morgan
Observatory if that’s what it is, Callanish
Will do, and empty your mind of everything
But Callanish, and then give Callanish
The kick, it takes at least a day and a night
For strongest ancient markers to dissolve
With all their people, artefacts, lastly all power
If you believe me, as I think you should –
And there is no word for what is left –
Imagine an eternity of this –
You, childless woman who wants to remain so,
You are frowning in this tawdry restaurant
And I do not know your beliefs, if any,
But I outstare you with my unspoken thought
That the greatest gift it is possible to make
Is life itself.
Gather your things, off
Into the grimy evening,
Woman unknown, best so.
Conversation in Palestine
– Your learned friends have been asking about you.
Where have you been and what have you seen?
– I walk round the lake and I collect people.
– That is not what I would call promising.
– Nothing not based on the ordinary will ever succeed.
– A face floating past the jamb of the door:
is that ordinary? People talk.
– My mother, with a candle! She doesn’t sleep.
Find better evidence than that. She’s ordinary.
I’m ordinary. I go to the temple,
ask some very simple questions. They bridle,
they splutter, they say respect your elders.
Well, there’s another who’s even younger,
not being born yet, but once my Wittgenstein
gets the bit between his teeth, oho,
or shall we say a simple ordinary poker,
they might complain indeed: give him a chance
he’ll change the world, give me a chance I’ll change
the world, and while I’m at it there’s my mother
who has already changed the world in having me,
an ordinary man in Galilee.
– What is so great about this Winterheim?
– Wittgenstein.
– Whatever. What has he done,
or rather, what will he do, if I believe you?
– Give away a fortune. Don’t you like that?
Ferociously honest, a life pared to the bone.
If you want processions, hierarchies,
he’s not your man. Swish vestments
are anathema to my father
can tell you that, and to me too
if it comes to it, and I go further:
white robes disingenuously simple
are worse than any magisterium’s twinkle.
Stand under the poplars in the park
says Wittgenstein, and it will come to you.
– What will?
– I have said.
– The stars will soon be out.
– I think so: the beam, the blinter, and the blaze.
Also by Edwin Morgan from Carcanet
Collected Poems
Virtual and Other Realities
A.D. – a trilogy of plays on the life of Jesus
New Selected Poems
Cathures
The Play of Gilgamesh
Translations
Edmond de Rostand, Cyrano de Bergerac
Jean Racine, Phaedra
Collected Translations
Beowulf
About the Author
EDWIN MORGAN was born in Glasgow in 1920. He became lecturer in English at the University of Glasgow, from which he retired as Professor in 1980. He was appointed Poet Laureate of Glasgow in 1999, and received the Queen’s Gold Medal for Poetry in 2000. In June 2001 he received the Weidenfeld Prize for Translation for Phaedra. In 2004 Edwin Morgan was appointed Scotland’s Makar, or Poet Laureate.
Copyright
First published in 2007
by Carcanet Press Ltd, Alliance House, 30 Cross Street, Manchester M2 7AQ
This ebook edition first published in 2011
All rights reserved
© Edwin Morgan 2007, © the Estate of Edwin Morgan 2011
The right of Edwin Morgan to be identified as author of this work has been asserted in accordance with Section 77 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988
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Epub ISBN 978–1–84777–823–9
Mobi ISBN 978–1–84777–824–6
