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Maeshowe Nipple
See – a green breast in a green field, aureola
sandy-rimmed, the nipple leaking a pale trail
to hidden chambers where, on dank dark walls,
the straight-branched runes of intrepid Vikings
recorded births and deaths, the passing of days;
inscribed their conquests; totted up the loot;
revealed, in this treeless place, a month's mind
for the forests and fjords of home; lamented
the abandonment of sweethearts and family
for so much squalling wildness where, when
the dragon boats moved on, their tongue
took root and sprouted from invaded soil
green words for Father, Daughter, Bread.
Source
From Bodywork. (Luath Press Ltd,
2007). With permission of the publisher.
Author's note
- The day I went to Maeshowe was grey and rainy.
I was glad to get inside. The neolithic chambered cairn and its
twelfth century Viking runes were impressive but when I re-emerged
what struck me was how well-concealed it was. I bought a postcard
- an aerial view - wrote it, addressed it, stuck on a stamp but
never sent it.
The postcard lay in my desk drawer for some years. During tidy
fits, I'd rediscover it, look at it, put it back in
the drawer until one day the phrase 'a green breast in a
green field' took a walk and ended up as a fairly long sentence.
But there's more to it. I remembered a friend mentioning
that Old Norse had given us father (fadir), daughter (dóttir)
and bread, (braud) – three essential words. I heard the click
of key turning the lock.
- month's mind means a longing
for one's
ancestors or times past. It is also the title of a piano piece
by John Ireland which I played as a teenager. I found it difficult
and sad: just the sort of thing I was drawn to at that age. The
phrase stayed with me, dormant, a soft mnemonic of itself, until
this poem woke it up.
- Before writing this commentary I searched
my desk drawer. No postcard.
 Editors' comment
Orkney has long been
an inspiration for poets, long before even George Mackay Brown
arrived on the scene. Dilys Rose's poem is a paean to the fabled
chambered cairn, thought to date back to 2800 BC, which in the
12th century was broken into and inhabited by the Vikings who
covered the walls in runes. This is the moment evoked by
Rose, who vividly and unconventionally imagines what it must
have been like to one of those itinerant marauders.
Biography
Dilys Rose lives in Edinburgh. She writes mostly
fiction and poetry and has published ten books, most recently Bodywork
(2007). She enjoys collaborations and has recently completed a
libretto for a chamber opera, The Child of Europe, with
composer Rory Boyle. A new collaboration with Tasmanian poet Karen
Knight and visual artists Polly Thelwall and Laurie Hastings is
due in Autumn 2008 (Knucker Press).
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