Kay - Bantam

Jackie Kay Bantam PICADOR The present was an egg laid by the past that had the future inside its shell Zora Neale Hurston My clan is darkness yont a wee ring O memory showin catsiller here or there But nocht complete or lookin twice the same Hugh MacDiarmid These hearts were woven of human joys and cares, Washed marvellously with sorrow, swift to mirth. The years had given them kindness. Dawn was theirs, And sunset, and the colours of the earth. Rupert Brooke Its a grand thing to get leave to live Nan ShepherdFor Matthew KayWith love(for the new war memorial in Kilmarnock) Between the lines of men, The lines of women come: In case you think me strange, Your postscript never came. The lines you repeat before you fall Into line, and the ones you say when you fall Asleep. Dear John, dear, dear, darling Lines unsaid, lines unformed.

You were a line crossed out, erased. Dazed, the girl who waits late, frazzled, fazed. The living still had to write a line. Messages: Poached rabbit. Out of your mind! Then the soup line; and on the bread line There again two eagles flown to the wind. How you were left behind, left behind, To feed the mumbling mouths of weans.

Family lines: Broken. I wont carry a gun, he said. I will carry the wounded, he said. And for years, she did, she took the dead on her back. I listened to you in my dreams, you said. Knock, Knock.

Im sending a kiss from Kilmarnock. Years down the line, there are the lines Youll have said to the dead, who, all of a sudden, Return and keep returning like the blossom to the trees, Like the wintergreen along the borderlines. Return now to walk this fine line between the living And the dead, winter or spring, winter or spring.

(My father at 87 remembers his father at 17) It wisnae men they sent tae war. It wis boys like the Bantams wee men named efter sma chickens, or later a jeep, a bike, a camera. That needy, fir soldiers, they drapped height Restriction, so small men came to war.

As a prisoner, my faithers weight dropped And years later, the shrapnel frae the Somme Shot oot, a wee jewel hidden in his right airm.

My grandfather, Joseph Kay, Highland Light Infantry After his capture on the 17th of January, Prisoner of war, Bourlon, Cambrai, and on and on From the Second Battle of the Somme, After the death of friends who did not become Fathers, grandfathers, husbands, old sons, Tram drivers, shipbuilders, miners, Lovers, joiny-inners never, ever raised his voice in anger. My father, John Kay, boy, up at dawn, Spies his father (shy man, bit withdrawn, shrapnel in his arm) Polishing the brass buttons of his tram drivers uniform, (Heavy, green) In a slot-like machine, The smell of Woodbine, shoes shined, his voice rising Coorie doon, coorie doon, coorie doon my darlingLie doon my dear and in your ear What was that Wagner aria? Song sheets flutter. Blood, bone, air, Ballads slide down the years, broken lines. My father, ninety, still singing his father Theres life in the old dog yet, John pipes Private Joseph Kay takes a long breath, Hits the note, hangs on, blows out. We wept. We wept.

Of course, of course.

It hurt. It hurt like hell. But it didnt matter, if no one knew. Nella Larsen, Passing There is no answer for a broken heart, she said. Now I cant forget the way she held her head up high.

She was always kind, my Mama, dignified. Theres nothing as potent as regret, I said, out loud, Though shes gone to the big upland in the sky, And the band is playing jazz, I hope, playing it loud. If ever you pass me in the street, pass me by, I said. I was too busy being somebody else, telling lies, Too full of shame of kindred, blood and line. I shouldve shut my mouth, not averted my eye. How I wish she could un-die, my kith, my kin.

The hands of time were pearly white, you see. If you want to blame somebody, dont blame me! If I loved her too much, Im sorry, she said.

Whether the weather be dreich or fair, my luve, if guid times greet us, or we hae tae face the worst, ahint and afore whit will happen tae us: blind in the present, eyes open to the furore, unkempt or perjink, suddenly puir or poorly, peely-wally or in fine fettle, beld or frosty, calm as a ghoul or in a feery-farry, in dork December or in springy spring weather, doon by the Barrows, on the Champs-lyses, at midnicht, first licht, whether the mune be roond or crescent, and yer o soond mind or absent, Ill tak your trusty haun and lead you over the haw hame, ma darlin. Ill carry ma lantern, and daur defend ye agin ony foe; and whilst there is breath in me, Ill blaw it intae ye. Fir ye are ma true luve, the bonnie face I see; nichts I fall intae slumber, its ye swimming up in all yer guidness and blitheness, yer passion. What joy to see love endure, dears, To come down the stairs at Glassard To overhear I love you John KayI love you Helen Kay. Like a surprise honeymoon, Colonsay, The shimmering sea, the long day The frank moon, the stars, the Milky Way. What joy to see love endure, dears, To come down the stairs at Glassard To overhear I love you John KayI love you Helen Kay. Like a surprise honeymoon, Colonsay, The shimmering sea, the long day The frank moon, the stars, the Milky Way.

How the years slide away. The seals slither off rocks to the bay. You sing every day to each other A ballad, blues or bawdy number Love: naturally occurs. Hardy. Comrades, compadres, companions, Love on the rise of the lapwings wing Up the hill and round the bend, singing, Sixty years of ding-dong. Past the golden sands of Kiloran Bay, The big woods, the Aspen Well Over the cairns of Cnoc Beag Love: a hut circle, standing stones.

Find it in the kitchen for a wee dance, In the back of the car through the crags and duns Love: climbing the MacPhees in one day, Give it a new word, this diamond, dear ones Call it Colonsay, the call of Colonsay! Helen and John, John and Helen Kay.

When the people who have lived all their lives, For democracy, for democracy, Survive to see the spring, April sunshine, Its a blessing; its a blessing. In the hospital this bleak mid-winter, You were just an old woman; You were just an old man. Nobody imagined how you marched against Polaris, How you sat down at Dunoon stood up for U.C.S. Nobody pictured you writing to Mandela And fifty other prisoners of South Africa. You were just an old woman; You were just an old man.

Nobody knew you greeted Madame Allende Or sang the songs of Victor Jara Or loved Big Arthurs bravura Bandiera Rossa Or heard Paul Robeson at the May Day rally You were just an old woman; You were just an old man. And how just last Saturday you were mad You couldnt march against Trident with Nicola Sturgeon. You say: One less missile would subsidize the arts for a century! You say: Which politician will stand up for the refugees! You would have struggled there with your new grey stick! You would have walked with your poppy red Zimmer. What do we want? You say! Peace in society. Time has not made your politics dimmer.

Back here, the iron line crosses future, past: Then my father will surely be seen Trekking the sodden, lonely land, Weekenders, together Or trudging through the ancient pine woods, The musk smell of red deer, My father, here on the moor, Years and years after hes gone, Held by the lands callused hands.