I wrote this poem in 2011 during a particularly bewitching snow-storm on Lake Menteith in Stirlingshire, Scotland. I had borrowed a pair of old, worn out and blunt ice-skates that were a size too small. And together with my friend, we set out to skate on the lake and also record the audio of the majestic sounds of Lake Menteith rumbling and shifting under the weight of itself. With the increasingly fine weather that winter, the ice had begun to break up and become more flimsy. Although that didn’t deter us from embarking on a journey over the lake to record the main crisis point of the sounds, as the water battled with the ice metres below.
The sun had dissapeared and left a warm, fizzy glow although no trace or memory of heat remained. It was a cold landscape although far from being desolate, it was alive with the constant dripping and majesty of the frozen tree branches turned into icicles.
My friend and I recorded the sound. It is akin to a tightly bound metal wire rebounding upon itself, or the sound of a mysterious UFO shooting out a laser. I skated for about 2 hours that night across the frozen lake and visited abandoned monasteries on tiny islets in the lake and heard the otherworldly sound of ice melding with water in a cataclysmic symphony. Although I don’t have the audio she recorded, here’s another audiovisual extravaganza recorded in Sweden which I think you will enjoy.
Rings of Saturn
I walked out onto the ice
The air collapsed and warped
sighed and bellowed
a fairly red-headed sunset
And below
the sound of a whale crying
in the sutures and cracks of The Atlantic
the sound of Saturn’s rings echoing
from across the solar system
my skates creeked and protested
made concentric circles
of a stonemasons drill
a figure eight eternity symbol
shredded and sewn
in striations across lilac velvet ice
I saw the endless horizon of darkness
The dancing history of my imagination
the ice warped like a hammer and anvil
erupted and roared
diametrically opposite to a bushfire
the alien moans of an alien race
deep beneath the loch
The dusk sky kneaded by invisible fingers
into dough yellow shortbreads
sticking to the alpine horizon
and purple mountain peaks
streaked with flirty adolescent stars
hazy highland ghosts
whispering the night in
We recorded the shadows, spectres and echos
planned to drill into the secrets
hear the sounds
see the paintings
feel the words come
next weekend