George Mackay Brown – and the music of poetry

Reading an essay on the poetry of George Mackay Brown, the Orkney poet, I came across examples of why his poetry can best be described as musical. 

Whether the words are shaped to symphonic sounds, or set in the informal discipline of a sonata, or showing off like the soloist in a concerto, there are sounds and rhythms in his poetry, and a capacity to evoke both image and emotion, that I’ve always found haunting, in a comforting kind of way.

“I have a deep-rooted belief that what has once existed
can never die:  not even the
frailest things, spindrift or clover-scent or glitter of star on a wet
stone.  All is gathered into
the web of creation, that is apparently established and yet perhaps only
a dream in the eternal mind.“
from Finished Fragrance, 

We are folded all
In a green fable
And we fare
From early
Plough-and-daffodil sun
Through revel
Of wind-tossed oats and barley
Past sickle and flail
To harvest home,
The circles of bread and ale
At the long table-
It is told, the story –
We and earth and sun and corn are one.
from
Christmas Poem, 

See what I mean? I once knew a brave woman whose life had more than its fair share of pain, of hurt, struggle and wrestling with circumstance. She had lived in Orkney and knew George Mackay Brown. She loved his poems, corresponded with him till his death in 1996, and took comfort from his poetry (of which she had several written for herself). I can understand why. Her resilience and lack of bitterness was at least partially due, I reckon, to an instinct for the beauty and healing of words. Does remembering people  before God, with gratitude, constitute praying for the dead? I hope so.