{"id":5236,"date":"2017-08-30T09:55:49","date_gmt":"2017-08-30T08:55:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bodhicharya.org\/manyroads\/?p=5236"},"modified":"2017-08-30T09:55:49","modified_gmt":"2017-08-30T08:55:49","slug":"the-brig","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bodhicharya.org\/manyroads\/the-brig\/","title":{"rendered":"THE BRIG"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

For those who like to see things in a unity, and in time for the opening of the beautiful Queensferry Crossing in a few hours, here is the entire sequence of the Brig poems:<\/p>\n

The Brig<\/p>\n

I<\/p>\n

Too often the ford had been impassable.
\nThe river tormented with a thunderous divide
\nbetween the landholds of opposing tribes
\nthat weighed their worth in lineage and cattle.<\/p>\n

Wild weathers brought them together at last;
\ndeep quarrels of blood were cast aside
\nso the need of exchange could override
\nthe lust for revenge through constant battle.<\/p>\n

They gathered up stones that the hills had shed,
\nassessing their value by texture and grain,
\nand split them to size with wedges, not swords.<\/p>\n

With each side anchored by the river’s bed,
\non a scaffold of pine they arched a span
\nlocking a keystone stronger than words.<\/p>\n

\u00a9Angus D H Ogilvy August 2017<\/p>\n

II<\/p>\n

On crystal days the bridge and the water
\nmade a circle of light in which birds and
\ninsects, air and thought might pass through time
\nwithout a single ripple of reflection.<\/p>\n

People came, not to traverse the bridge, but
\nto be where the gurgling silence was full
\nand to wait with no burden of expectation till
\nthe moon would tremble the halo with glow.<\/p>\n

Lovers met there where arms reached out
\nand touched, and pilgrims on their way
\nto penance stopped for ceremonies
\nof soft water and the sanctuary of trees.<\/p>\n

When rain roared with the river in full flow,
\nfox spirits crossed on the parabola of night.<\/p>\n

\u00a9Angus D H Ogilvy August 2017<\/p>\n

III<\/p>\n

Stones don’t groan, but there are times when
\nthe load placed on them calls out for a sound
\nto complement the burden of enforced departure,
\nthe weight that presses in a bitter leaving,
\nto harmonise with the lament of grinding wheels
\nand shuffling feet against greased cobbles,
\nthe scrabbling masses of submissive sheep
\nsqueezed through parapets towards course shearing.<\/p>\n

Dragoons and brigands on iron shod horses
\nclattered across with cloaked intentions;
\nand hearses, too, rigid as covered guns,
\nreturned for burials in the heart of the glen.<\/p>\n

With the advent of engines, the brig, disused,
\ndecayed, evoked in photographs of then.<\/p>\n

\u00a9Angus D H Ogilvy August 2017<\/p>\n

IV<\/p>\n

Sometimes it seems that the brig is one
\nwith the stone from which it sprung, as if
\nthe rock was reaching to rejoin itself after
\nthe wearing of millennia of water.<\/p>\n

There is a fragile solidity to
\nthe cupping of time in a curve that lifts
\nthe whole of the sky as an offering
\nto be passed to the clasp of another
\nin a gentle continuum of transference.<\/p>\n

Or is it, perhaps, the space that wears away,
\nand time that erodes to wasted sand
\nwith the water as its messenger;
\nand emptiness that makes the solid
\nof the hole in the stone it leaves behind?<\/p>\n

\u00a9Angus D H Ogilvy August 2017<\/p>\n

V<\/p>\n

People stopped to marvel at the skeleton
\nof the brig, how its rickle of stones still stood
\nin defiance of gravity and hard weather.<\/p>\n

Coaches and minibuses spilled out tourists.
\nSoon it was listed amongst a selection
\nof ‘must see sites’. Guides were hired to invent crude
\nmyths of secret trysts and black bloody deeds with their
\nassociated hauntings. Teens on study trips
\nqueued at caravans for brigburger
\nspecials and chips. Engineers sweated
\nto preserve the brig’s dilapidated state
\nin perpetuity. Nothing could be allowed to disturb
\nits rich antiquity, the wealth it created.<\/p>\n

Pipers piped pibrochs, donations gratefully accepted.<\/p>\n

\u00a9Angus D H Ogilvy August 2017<\/p>\n

VI<\/p>\n

The dome of a morning was stirred by a note
\nthat hollowed the bowl of hills and fields.
\nIt loomed as though through a ring of fog;
\nan upwelling out of the stubborn soil
\nshivering dying grasses with impending;
\nwater being strummed in a goblet of innocence;
\nthe songbreath of an aeolian vowel
\ncaptured in the curvature of a bell.<\/p>\n

Horses snorted, stamped, drew back their ears;
\ndogs turned docile, lolled below lintels,
\ntheir jaws held tight to the tremulous earth;
\nbirds cocked their heads, refrained from flying.<\/p>\n

Wind touched a wavering harmonic in the brig,
\nbrushed the tension in its stone with a fingertip.<\/p>\n

\u00a9Angus D H Ogilvy August 2017<\/p>\n

VII<\/p>\n

When the support about the keystone crumbles,
\nand the dressed blocks of the arch collapse
\ninto the rough and tumble of the torrent,
\nonce again we’ll have to learn to stumble
\nover the random stepping stones, and clasp
\nat overhanging foliage to prevent
\nbeing taken by that relentless force
\nof water thrusting from the thunder of the gorge.<\/p>\n

By then we’ll have forgotten the beauty of the bridge.
\nOur attention will be focused on the placement of our feet,
\nbalancing the power we’ll need to take those leaps
\nof faith that sudden bursts of courage,
\nand a fixed will to succeed, should help us reach
\nthose paths we lost through arrogance, conceit.<\/p>\n

\u00a9Angus D H Ogilvy August 2017<\/p>\n

VIII<\/p>\n

Once there was a brig here. That much is known.
\nWe find it in the lore of stories told round fires
\nafter the inundations, the re-formation of the ice.<\/p>\n

Who envisaged it, who argued its cause,
\nwho laid down the gold, who worked it, all are lost
\nto time and fern and moss with those who loved
\nand fought in consequence that it was here.<\/p>\n

Water has renewed the great divide.<\/p>\n

What remains is a bridge of mist,
\nthe suspended condensation of a truth
\nemerging like a halo out of night,<\/p>\n

What continues is the conjunction
\nof all that hangs upon the arch of a rainbow,
\na perfect precision of art, and light.<\/p>\n

\u00a9Angus D H Ogilvy August 2017<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\u00a0\"\"<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"angus\"Angus was born in Glasgow, grew up in Galloway, and was educated in Edinburgh and Dundee. He has had a career in education which included 25 years as an international school teacher\u00a0and administrator in Spain, China, Nepal, Indonesia and Zimbabwe. Since winning his school poetry prize in his youth, he has had an abiding interest in poetry and his poems have appeared in various publications.\u00a0 He returned to Edinburgh in 2008 and spends his time writing, doing voluntary work, and addressing conferences, seminars and symposiums about the patient experience of cancer using his poetry as an aid to communication. He has recently published a collection of poems,\u00a0Lights in the Constellation of the Crab\u00a0<\/i><\/a>and\u00a0House Clearing by Moonlight<\/a>,<\/em>\u00a0in aid of\u00a0Maggie\u2019s Cancer Caring Centres<\/a>.<\/h6>\n<\/div>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n
\u2013 See more at:\u00a0https:\/\/bodhicharya.org\/manyroads\/four-poems-by-angus-ogilvy\/#sthsh.R7xcnKtC.dpuf<\/a><\/h6>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

For those who like to see things in a unity, and in time for the opening of the beautiful Queensferry Crossing in a few hours, here is the entire sequence of the Brig poems: The Brig I Too often the ford had been impassable. The river tormented with a thunderous divide between the landholds of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":153,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"_uag_custom_page_level_css":"","_FSMCFIC_featured_image_caption":"","_FSMCFIC_featured_image_nocaption":"","_FSMCFIC_featured_image_hide":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[3,9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5236","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-poety","category-the-arts"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nTHE BRIG - Many Roads<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/bodhicharya.org\/manyroads\/the-brig\/\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Albert\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"5 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/bodhicharya.org\/manyroads\/the-brig\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/bodhicharya.org\/manyroads\/the-brig\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"Albert\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/bodhicharya.org\/manyroads\/#\/schema\/person\/d65113da84d62fbc945e6ee35f823e2a\"},\"headline\":\"THE BRIG\",\"datePublished\":\"2017-08-30T08:55:49+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/bodhicharya.org\/manyroads\/the-brig\/\"},\"wordCount\":1081,\"commentCount\":0,\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/bodhicharya.org\/manyroads\/#organization\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/bodhicharya.org\/manyroads\/the-brig\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/bodhicharya.org\/manyroads\/files\/2017\/08\/brig-300x225.jpg\",\"articleSection\":[\"Poetry\",\"The Arts\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/bodhicharya.org\/manyroads\/the-brig\/#respond\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/bodhicharya.org\/manyroads\/the-brig\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/bodhicharya.org\/manyroads\/the-brig\/\",\"name\":\"THE BRIG - 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The river tormented with a thunderous divide between the landholds of…","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bodhicharya.org\/manyroads\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5236","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bodhicharya.org\/manyroads\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bodhicharya.org\/manyroads\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bodhicharya.org\/manyroads\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/153"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bodhicharya.org\/manyroads\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5236"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bodhicharya.org\/manyroads\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5236\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bodhicharya.org\/manyroads\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5236"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bodhicharya.org\/manyroads\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5236"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bodhicharya.org\/manyroads\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5236"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}