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Sounds of the Summer Isles

Mairearad Green, the talented and award-winning musician and composer, is bringing out a new album called "Summer Isles".  I am thrilled to tell you that she has used three of my poems, all written during annual retreats on Tanera, as lyrics.  The album is mesmerising: each track, in turn, conjours up the history, the wildlife and the spirit of the place.  The Summer Isles provided the physical backdrop to Mairearad's childhood on the nearby mainland peninsula of Achiltibuie,  and this album displays both the lightness of touch and depth of knowledge only to be found in the work of someone with such a strong sense of place.

If you would like to order a copy of the album, please go to Mairearad's own website.

The Weaving of Grass

(in memory of Angus MacPhee)

Grass is a token

of love,

of labour,

of poverty,

and pride.

It is the sign of loneliness

and of sweet trampled passion.

It is green as youth,

old as the hills.

It is Spring.

It is Summer.

It is a brackish Autumn.

It lies battered in a Winter's storm.

It is food.

It is shelter.

It makes life and

it blankets the dead.

The grass is both seed and fruit.

And the same grass will gather

In hands that are holy,

as he weaves his way slowly

to find his way home.

Tanera, 2010