the GEORGE  MACKAY  BROWN
website


Bard of Orkney:  1921 - 1996
by
Sue Tordoff



G
randeur surrounds him, as it did in life, and now for 
Evermore. Feeling the gentle touch on high, 
Omnipresence at first hand, 
Rather than through stone and sea and sky,
George enters the grand stage on his journey, the
Exploration of Silence.

Magnus called him, and on the saint's own day
As if ordained, his earthly body came to rest.
Captured and plucked from the moving flow, 
Knowing and sure, his words live on, blessed
Always with his spirit, nudging the gateway of mystery
Yielding at his touch; present links with past.

Bard of Orkney, interrogator of silence, poet of the
Rackwick cycle, listen now to the eternal silence ~
Orbit of the moon, the path of the sun through its stations.
What will you make of this sense-less hush? 
No words, just nuances in the endless dance of creation.

© Sue Tordoff 1998

A version of this poem was first published in The Orkney View 
on the second anniversary of GMB's death.  GMB himself wrote
many acrostic poems for friends' birthdays and anniversaries.


  Site Index  |  Books/Writing about GMB index  |