POEM OF THE DAY

GEORGE BRUCE, the Fraserburgh-born poet, shares a sociable afternoon with a distinguished artist contemporary and friend. The poem offers an insight into the creative process of both. It can be found in Today Tomorrow, Bruce’s Collected Poems, 1933-2000, Polygon, £14.99).

SOUP AND SHERRY

It was 3.30 in the afternoon, mid-november, and I was calling on Bill Gillies

(Sir William Gillies, R.S.A., R.A. etcetera):

‘Come in,’ he says, ‘We’ll have soup.

You won’t be drinking and driving so we’ll have sherry.’ Didn’t like the idea of the combination, but the lentil soup was hottering on the stove so there was nothing for it but swallow it with the sherry.

There was a painting on the easel of Temple, the village where we were. It didn’t look like the rainy street off which I had just come. In it the moon was up and silvering the length of it, pavement, tarmac road, squat houses, and touching up two black trees, winter trees, but each twig starting from its branch as if Spring were in it. I looked out the window. Nothing like the painting. No glimmering windows along the street. He was stirring the soup. He didn’t look up.

‘I catched a painting last night.’

I could see him casting on the Esks, North Esk, South Esk, Leithen Water, Falla.

How many paintings got away? ‘Soup’s ready.’

How many poems slip back into my dark sea?