A Good Cause

Contents


Acknowledgements 10


A Good Cause 11
To remember or not 12
A sign for our time 13
The Floating Iceberg's Song 14
Dead statues 15
Crystal Ship 17
Belles Lettres 18
Let it not be said 21
Collie dog among the books 23
Hear, O Israel 24
Midas 25
Stock 26
Things mustn't go back to 'normal' 28
Is there a country? 30
The only 32 Cliffs 33
Religion among the people in Scotland 35
Religion in Scotland 37
Contumacious 38
The Cycle Path to Cramond 39
Deprived 41
The Enchanted Bridge 42
Mornings at Insh 44
Women's secret language in China 45
Rune for him 46
Rune for myself 47
Sheer Life 48
Rossal, Sutherland, in the mists of time 49
Disseveral Irish Couplets 51
Dundrennan 54
Pow Wow 56
Rescue Attempt 58
Glas fhairge 59
Not on the map 60
Camouflage 61
The Great Tapestry of Scotland 62
Raise 63
Epithalamion 64
Girls' song for counting cherry stones 65
Revelations 66
As I trod those stairs 67
Tea Ritual 69
beauty and freedom 70
Footlight 71
Adding to Favourites 71
For my grandsons 72
Lily of Raasay 73
Flos Campi 75
Barra 76
Chant, South Uist 77
but still a bird 78
Sentience 79
Aberlady Walk 80
December night, Edinburgh, 2002 81
Meeting of Gods 82
Rhymer's Glen, Abbotsford 83
Stromness Stroll 84
An Exotic Sanctuary 86
Turner in Cornwall 87
broken and free 88
Poinsettia 89
Indian Leaf Butterfly 90
Mantra 91
The Loving Spirit 92
For Eric Wishart at sixty 93
Tribute to Duncan Glen 94
Poem for Zena 97
The Shortest Day 99
Vale 100
Yeats's Grave 101
Marginalia 102
A Tryst 103
Trees for YES 104
Hope 105
Endings 106
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Tessa Ransford's poetry is
characterised by flexibility and
lucidity - TOM POW



Tessa Ransford has never lost her faith in that powerful trinity - nature, love and, above all, poetry. EDINBURGH REVIEW



Ransford takes the reader on a journey to explore the differences between 'then' and 'now', linking the reader to a world now lost to most. These poems question what it is to be both British and Indian, drawing on the author's memories and experiences to celebrate and uncover an 'Indian' self. SCOTTISH REVIW OF BOOKS
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Tessa Ransford is a poet, translator and literary editor. A cultural
activist on many fronts for over forty years, she founded the Scottish
Poetry Library. In 2001, she initiated the annual Callum Macdonald
Memorial Award for publishers of pamphlet poetry in Scotland and
has held Royal Literary Fund fellowships at the Centre for Human
Ecology and Queen Margaret University. Full details of her work
are available at wisdomfield.com. Recent poetry publications include:
Not Just Moonshine: New and Selected Poems (2008); Rug
of a Thousand Colours (2012), a collaboration with Palestinian poet
Iyad Hayatleh inspired by the Five Pillars of Islam; Don't mention
this to anyone (2012), poems connected with India and Pakistan,
with calligraphy by Jila Peacock; and Made in Edinburgh (2014),
reflections on Arthur's Seat and Holyrood Park, with photographs
by Michael Knowles. A Good Cause offers a new selection of previously
uncollected poems, the 'good cause' being ultimately the intrinsic
good of poetry itself.
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