Solace

I turn to George for comfort, buying and selling houses is a stressful business.

I've been collecting George Mackay Brown books for over a decade. His writing is lyrical, he sees the marvellous in the ordinary so beautifully. The pebble is from Rackwick Bay on the island of Hoy, a favourite place which inspired him. He said of his first visit, "the beauty of Rackwick struck me like a blow." It became a powerful symbol for George, a symbol he believed became "'lodged in many of his finest stories and poems, giving them any power and radiance they may have."

This is a poem he wrote as he approached 70, a poem which has personal significance for me now. He wrote it after his "skirmish with cancer", for which he uses the allegory of the storm, another frequent symbol in his work.

One Star in the West

To have got so far, alone
Almost to the seventieth stone
Is a wonder.
There was thunder

A few miles back, a storm-shaken
Hill and sea, the bridge broken
[The bright fluent Burn a bruised torrent.]

But all cleared, larks were singing
Again, the April rain ringing
Across the sown hills,
Among the daffodils.

The road winds uphill, but
A wonder will be to sit
On the stone at last -
One star in the west.

copyright estate of GMB

George Mackay Brown, sometimes called The Bard of Orkney, born Stromness, Orkney 1921, died Stromness 1996. He is buried in the Kirkyard at Warbeth, just outside Stromness, looking across to Hoy.

Carve the runes
Then be content with silence.