my reason and the likeness of a star

It's World Book Day ...

... so here's a book I never tire of returning to; the 'White Leaping Flame' - every page is an absolute poetic delight (Sorley MacLean 2011 'Collected Poems').

This excerpt, from the lengthy - and truly stunning - 'Poems to Eimhir' sequence, never fails to simply stop me in my tracks:

  
‘Poems to Eimhir’ XLIII


But for you

But for you the Cuillin would be
an exact and serrated blue rampart
girdling with its march-wall
all that is my fierce heart.

But for you the sand
that is in Talisker compact and white
would be a measureless plain to my expectations
and on it the spear desire would not turn back.

But for you the oceans
in their unrest and their repose
would raise the wave-crests of my mind
and settle them on a high serenity.

And the brown brindled moorland
and my reason would co-extend -
but you imposed on them an edict
above my own pain.

And on a distant luxuriant summit
there blossomed the Tree of Strings,
among its leafy branches your face,
my reason and the likeness of a star.

 ---

Sorley MacLean (1911 – 1996)

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