TIPPERLINN
SUNSHINE.
A cluster of small cottages
women handloom weavers
Tipperlinn, with a ‘reputation’
for sunshine, and
the ‘best people’ in Edinburgh.
RATIONAL + PRACTICAL.
The sunny cottages replaced
by a grand house and an Asylum
that was never to be
big enough.
Tipperlinn, the new mansion
built of warm-hued sandstone,
windows floor-to-ceiling
home of Dr Skae, Physician Superintendent,
protégé of Dr Batty-Tuke – another
large-headed man.
July 1863, at Tipperlinn:
that famous address to the emerging establishment
‘A Rational and Practical Classification of Insanity’:
brainful and weighty,
it was well received,
though had a few critics.
CATRIONA.
Years collapse now.
You were born, October 1965 –
from birth your eyes blazed: everyone remarked.
I arrived late, backwardly, 1967.
From the start, sister + brother
we were ‘ROUGH PROOF’.
[Photographs survive to confirm this!]
THE BANK.
Catriona, when wee, our childhood
seemed endless.
Today, it feels like
a momentary passing.
Memory, young and old, not being
always reliable,
yet Granny’s letters read like yesterday:
“Most of the time is taken with Stuart talking about the Bank”
“It is grim and exhausting”.
THE MEADOWS.
1969, Tipperlinn House has a new role:
‘The Young People’s Department’.
Aged just 8, you were to be
one of its youngest ‘guests’ –
your bright eyes dimmed instantly.
I recall ‘family Therapy’
dressed up in shirt and orange tie,
aged just six.
Interviewed behind a two-way mirror
That was blinding.
GUESTS OF THE REAL.
You escaped
from Hospital.
Granny describes, in her letters,
how you were ‘captured’ in the Meadows.
Dr Wolf, like all the adults,
got you so wrong.
Yes, it was Dr Wolf who wrote that celebrated book:
‘Children Under Stress’.
PERSISTENCE OF WOUNDS:
Four decades of Psychiatric drugs:
this is your ‘later’.
Practically and Rationally, you are considered
Mentally ill, Majorly, so. Intractably meadowless.
But Catriona, I see your eyes as they once were,
so bright,
in my creative
brilliant
older sister.
I guess that we weren’t so
“ROUGH PROOF”
AITEANDORUIS
On a bend
of the river Oykel, with
the best view
of the Kyle of Sutherland!
You stood
on the high watermark
of ‘ordinary’
Spring tides.
Aiteandoruis –
‘the place of the door’
from the moment
I heard of you
I had to visit.
Aiteandoruis –
It did not matter to me
that nothing survives of you,
‘ankle-high’, or
otherwise!
BAUDOLINO said:
‘a door is not a door if it does not have
a building around it’.
Sometimes, I disagree with
metaphors!
Aiteandoruis –
Door to door,
I visit ruins
seeking the notion
of ‘through’.
In the Kyle of Sutherland
on a bend
in a river
there was a house
with a door.
The Dirlot Angel
I travelled
far North
to finally meet
you.
Quietly to share
my beautiful
misunderstood sister.
She once dazzled
as you did.
Today, lichen
of Caithness,
light-radiant lichen,
gathers on you like Time,
adding to your beauty.
There is something more,
to being an
Angel.
Slaggan Bay
Big Ted was fed up
with all the maps and notes
– that I keep gathering.
So, I promised him
Slaggan Bay
where, wave after wave
would find ‘reality’
and time, illimitable
as the horizon.
Together,
we reached Slaggan Bay,
our wonderful experience
now lost
inside
this poem.
Dundonnell
You died aged sixteen:
a ‘spasm’ of the heart.
Your bones
in a circular place
inside an ancient beech plantation.
Here, adding to the melody of bird song,
I heard your heart beat –
whilst mine faltered.
You died aged sixteen.
Destitution Road
Heading North
– there is always
a further North.
Wandering, further
and further from home,
in nameless, numberless time.
Destitution Road.
COLOURED CHALKS
poems are
coloured chalks.
bright,
vivid colours
that no time
can weather.
Friendship is time itself.
We met
through
your brother.
I never met
your brother
so this must
be impossible.
Friendship,
is time itself.