Life Experiences – Ruaraidh MacThòmais: Cisteachan-Laighe

Life experiences; they shape us, and our understandings and actions. They alter how we view and interact with the world. I still recall exactly where I was in that moment nearly half a century ago when I had the realization which Ruaraidh MacThòmais speaks about so eloquently in this poem concerning the death of culture, of language death and its impact on those who experience it personally. Though he speaks of painful experience, such experiences may help us forge our path through life in unique and even positive ways. Taking our personal experiences as fodder for a life lived with meaning should be something for which we strive.


Cisteachan-Laighe

Duin' àrd, tana
's fiasag bheag air,
's locair 'na làimh:
gach uair theid mi seachad
air bùth-shaoirsneachd sa' bhaile,
's a thig gu mo chuinnlean fàileadh na min-sàibh,
thig gu mo chuimhne cuimhne an àit ud,
le na cisteachan-laighe,

na h-ùird 's na tairgean,

na saibh 's na sgeilbean,

is mo sheanair crom,

is sliseag bho shliseag ga locradh

bhon bhòrd thana lom.

Mus robh fhios agam dè bh' ann bàs;
beachd, bloigh fios, boillsgeadh
den dorchadas, fathann de'n t-sàmhchair.
'S nuair a sheas mi aig uaigh,
là fuar Earraich, cha dainig smuain
thugam air na cisteachan-laighe
a rinn esan do chàch:
'sann a bha mi 'g iarraidh dhachaigh,
far am biodh còmhradh, is tea, is blàths.

Is anns an sgoil eile cuideachd,
san robh saoir na h-inntinn a' locradh,
cha tug mi 'n aire do na cisteachan-laighe,
ged a bha iad 'nan suidhe mun cuairt orm;
cha do dh' aithnich mi 'm brèid Beurla,
an liomh Gallda bha dol air an fhiodh,
cha do leugh mi na facail air a' phràis,
cha do thuig mi gu robh mo chinneadh a' dol bàs.
Gus an dainig gaoth fhuar an Earraich-sa
a locradh a' chridhe;
gus na dh' fhairich mi na tairgean a' dol tromham,
's cha shlànaich tea no còmhradh an cràdh.


Ruaraidh MacThòmais (Derick Thomson) from Creachadh na Clarsaich/ Plundering the Harp (Macdonald, 1982)


Coffins


A tall thin man
with a short beard,
and a plane in his hand:
whenever I pass
a joiner's shop in the city,
and the scent of sawdust comes to my nostrils,
memories return of that place,
with the coffins,
the hammers and nails,
saws and chisels,
and my grandfather, bent,
planing shavings
from a thin, bare plank.

Before I knew what death was;
or had any notion, a glimmering
of the darkness, a whisper of the stillness.
And when I stood at his grave,
on a cold Spring day, not a thought
came to me of the coffins
he made for others:
I merely wanted home
where there would be talk, and tea, and warmth.

And in the other school also,
where the joiners of the mind were planing,
I never noticed the coffins,
though they were sitting all round me;
I did not recognise the English braid,
the Lowland varnish being applied to the wood,
I did not read the words on the brass,
I did not understand that my race was dying.
Until the cold wind of this Spring came
to plane the heart;
until I felt the nails piercing me,
and neither tea nor talk will heal the pain.

Ruaraidh MacThòmais (Professor Derick S. Thomson) was a poet, publisher and editor whose impact on the Gaelic language has been immense.

MacThòmais was born in Steòrnabhagh, Leòdhas (Stornoway, Isle of Lewis), in 1921 and grew up in the nearby village of Pabail (Bayble). Following graduation at Aberdeen University and wartime service with the RAF, he studied at Cambridge and Bangor University. In 1948 he was appointed Assistant of Celtic at Edinburgh University. Ruaraidh MacThòmais died in Glasgow, 21 March 2012.