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whisky

LORD WOOLAVINGTON’S HOUSE PARTY, AUGUST 1922

Jimmy Buchanan, self-made whisky tycoon,

became Lord Woolavington of Lavington,

Sussex, in January ’22.

He acquired his peerage, it was said,

with a post-dated cheque signed ‘Woolavington’.

To celebrate he hosted a lavish

grouse-shooting party that Glorious Twelfth

on his moorland estate near the Moray Firth.

 

To prepare for the party, heather had been scorched

so young grouse might fatten on the new shoots.

The corpses of polecats and pine martens

had been hung on gates and from fence posts,

and skies emptied of hen harriers,

and purged of the dancing of red kites.

 

There is a photograph of a guest posing –

in tweeds, sporran, kilt, a gillie beside him,

a retriever at his feet – with his shotgun

at the ready. He is standing in a butt

of cut, piled heather. He is waiting

for the hired beaters to drive the birds up

so they are silhouetted against the sky.

 

 

 

PREPOSITIONS II

TO LINDISFARNE

From Seahouses to

Inner Farne, a bumble bee

escorted our boat.

OFF POINT OF AIR

In a far channel,

a lone boatmen plays the pipes:

‘The Road to the Isles’.

FROM HILBRE ISLAND

A pale summer’s day –

low tide, windless, infinite:

seals bark distantly.

ON YNYS LLANDDWYN

On summer’s last  day,

wind flecked wave crests arise, curl,

spill like quick-silver.

FROM THE MARITIME MUSEUM

Brown pelicans glide

freely, over Alcatraz,

like tawny galleons.

FROM GOLDEN GATE BRIDGE

Shouldering the wind, our

close shadows are stretched below

on the ribbed water.

ON SCREMERSTON BEACH, NEW YEAR’S DAY

In the dunes, a seal

was stranded – dissipating whisky

and resolve.