travel blog

Back and Over

8/12/2016

Back Over -

Ocean morning,
A weak sun glints off the edge of wave,
Wind whipping a froth against the grain of tide
Sending it back over hard,
Even the birds are downed as they wait
For a lull.
Only one boat of rowers out there, and
They are late this morning,
Heavy ores knead the surface of water
Churning thick as soup,
In this grey upon grey and white cap world,
Buttoned up, bodies eating their stores,
Slowly they make their way
Across the increasing roar,
With even determined strokes and
Steady pace of work,
Five women in all, coaxing,
They speak to the wind and the wave
As they move along.

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Back Over

8/12/2016

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What the Girl Would Say on the Arrival of the Bees

8/6/2016

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What the Girl Would Say on the Arrival of the Bees -

I do not keep bees,
Rather, they keep me then,
Sometimes, on their own,
Sometimes in groups,
On transparent wing
and velvet body,
They leap at will,
Drinking around the edges
of a small pond,
Chasing, rolling in
the just opened Celandine,
Full of nectar color and sticky
Landing - my bare arm a preferred
perch for a time, leg dance, touch heat,
Then my hair – a shiny dark ghost,
blanket of rest and hiding,
sugar map terrain,
bees walking across bees, walking
across me,
Then to in-flight vibration,
hollow veined wing,
heavier body, red tongued
path from point to hive,
thought in a swaddling of
close, closer sound and curl,
They are in dream, swarm,
In a mass of golden flicker condensed,
The weight of all their promises unleashed.

©2016, M. R. Baird

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Gulls

8/5/2016

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Gulls -

There is a gull here,
two twining necklaces of
charcoal and pale grey wrapped
against her whitest of feathers,
she stands away from the others
as different and rare, adorned,
a tapered nameless fragment
of the colony of gulls.
Along the jetty and up into the eaves
of houses they cluster together
and watch her, talk
among themselves, these
plain white birds, all the same.
She flies up into the wind, then turns
A slanted blade wing down,
dives and catches
her flash reflection
in silver waters,
Gentle pull of tide returning
wilder than the rest,
this is her place, her doorway,
She opens, lets out a long cliff of a trill,
coasts at the edge of the wave,
alone.

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Castles Galore

7/27/2016

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Castles Galore-

Once upon a time… When I was just 18 I was supposed to run off to Scotland, live in a castle with my best friend. We had it all planned. I had seen an advert in the back of a travel magazine – “Come live in the Highlands - $300. per month, room and board, in a room where queens have slept, our beautiful castle, a river full of fish, hill walking, massive gardens.” It included two photos, one of the castle with forest and mountains in the background, one of the river. It was to be a beautiful adventure, a rite of passage into adulthood. It did note that the castle had a ghost. We were undeterred. We had more of that brash teenage confidence than any skinny ghost, we might even be able to send it packing, the two of us. Then my friend’s father decided it was a very bad idea for her to run off to Scotland with me. She might meet a charming Scot in a kilt and all his plans for her marrying a good Greek boy who would keep her in line would be ruined. Of course he was right. I am sure if we had gone then, we would have had the time of our lives and met some lovely kilted locals, probably settled in Scotland, never to return to California and our respective families. It would have been grand, just what we both needed. Never mind, the castles back then (this is pre-castle tourism, pre-castle refurbed hotels) were probably moldy, cold, in somewhat of an original state. We would have both loved it. So, one month before we were set to leave, he bribed her. All expense paid luxury six-month tour around Greece, staying with her wealthy aunt: If you are going to Europe, you should first go to your home country (guilt), you can always go to Scotland next year (never going to happen), your aunt has a mansion, will buy you anything you want, jewels, houses, cars…(ach). The catch was, that I was definitely not invited. A bad influence on all his plans. She had uncovered an earlier plot to basically kidnap her, prior to her eighteenth birthday, where he could legally marry her off in Greece to the boy of his choosing. I was a staunch supporter of her independent choice – she was an American. She could get to an embassy and ask for help. Her father scrapped that plan in favor of a lure. Being of age, he could not force her to go, but he could coerce her into it. My friend being so much more of a material girl than I, caved. She traded her highland adventure for a pricey pair of shoes and the Greek Riviera. I knew that would be the beginning of the end of our friendship. She went to Greece, got indoctrinated, returned, married someone her father approved of and spent a major portion of her adult life trying to get past it. Turns out he was a bigamist. Already married in Egypt with kids (of course hid this from her) and was trying to lure her to Cairo, where she would be legally his property, second wife, and, if she ever made it to an Embassy could be anyone’s guess.
I couldn’t afford to go on my own, we had each saved just enough for our share and an emergency fund. Deeply disappointed, crushed actually, I started my active spiritual searching for a larger path and life and vowed that I would get to Scotland, someday, even if on my own…I started hiking in the Sierra’s, took classes at Esalen, bought a pair of wellies, learned to fish, dated other poets and moved away from the city for good. I was subconsciously in training for a future Highland life.
Turns out that most towns in Scotland can claim a castle in their midst – the once and future home of the overlords of the day, some crumbing, some rubble, others actually still occupied. So what do you do with a castle in your midst these days? Put up signs directing tourists through town and over to the fortress, citadel cum palace, or whatever is left of it. And if still occupied? How, exactly does one maintain a castle? Tourists.
April -October is castle season. Dukes, Barons, Lords, Lairds, Counts, (and all their female counterparts and families on the whole) open the gates and gardens and, usually, even a part of their house as a museum of sorts. They also give the option of renting the entire lot out for weddings and special occasions. The drawing room, the library, the formal dining room, etc. are on display. Culzean Castle, (granted, this is now a trust property – another option for being able to stay in your very big house) has even added eight rescued llamas and an exciting new playground, “Adventure Cove,” to lure more of the wee tourists to bring their families along. The Culzean Trust head forester explains that tragically, the Kennedy family once kept a menagerie of exotic animals such as bison and emus, a sort of early zoo – all gone now.
Aristocrats on a budget, have staked out a wing (usually on the west side of the castle – don’t exactly know why this is – but it is fairly consistent), and have modernized the interior – dropped the ceilings down to an energy efficient level, put in central heating for the apartments, built insulated walls within the walls (castles are dark and dank on the whole) – added lots of lighting, then decorated. This is the inner sanctum, the private apartments of the family, where they can have a little peace and grandeur when the coach loads of visitors and tour guides have left, when the grounds crew put away all their heavy equipment and head home. This also means they don’t have to heat the rest of it. That could be quite expensive now that manpower is fair wage only – no legions of staff to keep those multitudinous fireplaces going. Besides, back in the day there were frequent castle fires, due to unattended fireplaces or candlelit chandeliers, etc., difficult to insure that bit now. What do they get for all their castle owning troubles? Space, a continuum of family history, a sense of ownership, a private stroll through your very own pinetum, vast grounds and gardens – available from 5 p.m. to 8 a.m., where after, should you own a castle, you are guaranteed to be over-run again. Castle dwelling definitely is not what it used to be. I rather like the idea that these days, the rabble, who used to be relegated to the less then glorious lodgings in the villages at the edges of the estate (miles away in fact), now come to the big house, not just to work, but to have a wee poke around. (To be fair, the villagers were protected and invited in if there was to be a war, castle attack imminent or soon to be under siege as the overlords needed manpower for soldiering, long term food handy and the village shepherds and the like to manage all that livestock.)
That being said, age, destruction and abandonment have not diminished the mystique of the castle. Case in point, the ruins of Dunnottar Castle, outside of Stonehaven in Aberdeenshire. This medieval castle is still entirely masculine (most are; some are not). It was no doubt utterly glorious in its day, and the ultimate fortress as well. Castles were made to impress as well as defend. Set between two burns, it is well placed, perched on a towering hill of stone that juts out of the North Sea, mostly separate from the coastal land mass. Defendable.
Dunnottar also has a resounding presence all its own and is therefore very relevant. Scores of the whitest of gulls nest on the walls now, and lyrically fly off edges to the wildflower field and water falls across the crag, then swing out over the endless blue of ocean that laps at the castle roots, diving in large numbers, as if from a sky scraper, straight down. The water is so clear you can see the bottom rocks and fish for nearly a mile off shore. This castle had been captured by my ancestor William Wallace. Later, as the home of the Keith’s, long-time supporters of the Stewarts, it was visited by Mary Queen of Scotts and her son, James the VI of Scotland/the Ist of England. Then for the same reason, (Jacobites and royals out, Protestants in) summarily looted and burnt down during the Protestant Reformation. Looking across the hill to Dunnottar’s remains, I feel as if I am dreaming – I can hear the castle heaving with gatherings, the horses coming down and across the mid-air bridge, the music. If there are any ghosts here, they would have to be of the mythic kind, larger than the castle walls and cliff edge, some monolithic God cousin to Neptune, the mighty God Dunnottar. There is something still very much alive within this medieval lens, these remaining walls, this rock cliff beneath my feet. Rounding the corner to go, I feel like I am leaving a lover on a lark and vow to return again.

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The Lady of St. Monance

7/25/2016

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The Lady of St. Monans -

This is a story of one of Scotland’s most beautiful sights to behold, her people. Ena is the 87-year-old mother of the neighbor at the Harvest Moon Inn, St. Monans, (back in the day, spelled St. Monance) where I am put up. A series of combined old fisherman’s cottages, a one off, sheltered, just around the harbor corner at 12 Forth Street where, in my room I can still catch the faintest whiff of a century gone fisherman’s oily hair cream (or maybe it is wood oil). I met Ena’s youngest daughter Margaret at the Inn over tea – Margaret said I should ring her mum up as she had many great stories to tell, if I could understand her broad accent. Ena lives just at the top of the hill. As we walk towards her house, the sky opens up a cloud burst and by the time I have walked up I am dripping at her door. “Come in dearie.” “Don’t ya worry bout tat – ya ken?” (you know). Ena is wearing a beautiful print of a dress, slightly flared and ending at the bottom of the knee. She has a white cardigan on and a delicate chained necklace. Her fine silver hair is perfectly coiffed and she has lipstick on. Ena has just come from church. She welcomes Fiona (the innkeeper and friend of Margaret) and I into her parlor and fetches us some tea. It is just what you do here. You are always offered (and expected to accept tea). Tea is not just the drink. It is almost always served with some kind of biscuit (cookie). Ena has prepared a tray with five different kinds of biscuit, including chocolate dipped cookies, petit-fours, and fine china to hold our drink in. Her tea pot has a cozy on it as she will need to keep the tea warm for our entire visit. Once we have been restored and dried out a bit, Ena brings out her box of treasures – pictures and her family history. Her parents, grand-parents, siblings, children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren are represented. Pictures of all the weddings on down the line are framed and tidily arranged throughout the neat as a pin cottage. Next she pulls out an ancestral chart that dates back to the early 1700’s and reviews both sides of her family with us. Lastly, she opens her hands revealing pictures of her posing with several of her beaus. Yes, Ena had a throng of male attention back in the day, Ena was what you would call “a looker.” Very wholesome, down to earth, girl next door sort of a looker. As far as I am concerned, Ena still is. She is the most lovely, bright and beguiling 87-year-old I have ever met. She explains how she still puts on her “lippy” even when taking out the rubbish, as prior beaus have appeared out of the blue on her doorstep, you never know when one might turn up, the ones that are still alive that is ‘ya ken?’ I asked Ena about war time in St. Monans. She remembered all the windows being painted black. She told of how a boy down the road had gone to feed his rabbits at night. He used a pen light and the German’s bombed and killed him and his mother. No lights - lights let the enemy know where you were. There were low-risk prisoners of war, mostly Italians, who helped harvest on the farms and were allowed to go around freely. Most of them ended up staying and marrying local women. Also polish soldiers who were over here with their leading general in command, helping the war effort as their country had been taken. The Polish soldiers were so handsome and they all liked to dance, were good dancers, some of them stayed on after the war as well. Lots of dancing in those days. No one seemed to mind except the local boys - the war brought in a lot of competition. Ena laughed, then proceeded to break out old love letters from the box, men, several who were at war, writing her and professing their love. Bill wrote about her sparkling eyes and how he tried to make her angry as her eyes sparkled even more when she was mad. Joey wanted a picture of her. Arthur was bartering chocolate for kisses. The bulk of each letter revealed in great detail their day to day life in the military as if telling her would keep a thread of normality constant. Each voice was different: Billy was mischievous - a good dancer, Joey was clearly homesick and miserable, Arthur was romanticizing and nervous that she would find another. You could get a clear sense of who these men were by the way they wrote.
She had not ended up marrying any of them. They had all become policemen. She met her husband David when she was eight. "He was always there, ya ken?" David had also been a policeman. “Must have been the uniform, ya ken” she said. I asked Ena if she ever got out dancing these days. She smiled a graceful smile and answered, “Oh aye, ya ken?”

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Hours at Comrie

7/22/2016

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Hours at Comrie -

In the morning we gathered up stories,
Climbed them up the stepped cliff,
Each bend and curve of ridge,
Of torrent and waterfall,
Carried a line of light that traveled
Like surface fire along with us,
Then, together, all, back down,
Passing house after house,
Through a forest opening
To the village edge, just there
The wooded knoll,
The red flood,
Wrapped inside the warmth of
Summer night and clouds draped so low
They were close enough to touch,
Along the road of meadowsweet
Where a river meets one and then another,
Joining, turning over their silver threads
Along the bridge of Ross,
One river now, carried off the Earn
Into the world beyond.
.

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St. Andrew Was Here

7/18/2016

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St. Andrew was Here -

His bones cross the edge
Of rock face, drifting
Apostle, once,
They carried him
From the holy east
To the ends of earth,
Up the North Sea,
Where babies now learn to swim
In soft low waters,
Another celestial wash ashore,
That one shell, swaddled,
After the fire,
Gone to Edinburgh -
Earth bound again, rightly,
Give it a name, this place,
With breath of universe
In each wave released,
A cloud full pillow tide,
Later lie awake in shifting sands,
Where the rain still falls,
Every drop counting
Cathedrals, built here,
Crumbled like soft flesh,
Now hollow brick and stack,
Schools of fish and men
Have caught the golden
Number of his once
White star thread
Of blood, now bells and wind
Ring out in this chosen place,
all his, a saltire of sky
Landed.

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A Kingdom

7/17/2016

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A Kingdom -

Those moveable towers
That search to spout,
Tugging to one end
Of firth, then another
Needle into the hay,
Rocket launch dawn
And move aside,
Bring on the thunder,
There is supposed to be a season
Before the storms come,
But they are untethered now,
Endless,
I could weep
And break my heart
With remembering,
How wild we used to be,
How free,
Before Kings thought
They were not one of us,
Only part of the wrath of a god
Come down.

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Luthrie, Fife

7/16/2016

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- Luthrie -

Words and thoughts spill out
Like sheets of notes on paper
Those lines along your face,
I am traveled here, small,
Following the curve of speech,
Pin head balance, glean
And flutter along
In a blue-tailed dance,
We are window birds,
Small and bright,
Among the crumbled
Stones and path,
Circle then returning back
To earth, the empty school,
With a sharp pulse and trill,
That echoes on to the sea,
High up and down
Like running music
Go these green hills
And fields of rapeseed,
Monuments and fallen,
Today I went beyond these walls
Then gates, further still, into call and answer,
Today I crossed the river Eden,
Out into another world.

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Back and Over

Back Over

What the Girl Would Say on the Arrival of the Bees

Gulls

Castles Galore

The Lady of St. Monance

Hours at Comrie

St. Andrew Was Here

A Kingdom

Luthrie, Fife

SCOTLAND - WONDERLAND

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