Happy All Saint’s Day! In honour of today, we will be sharing a poem from Lewis MacKinnon’s Ràithean airson Sireadh / Seasons for Seeking, available on paperback and as a 2-disc audiobook. Ràithean airson Sireadh explores the Gaelic calendar through the poet Rumi. Break out your soul cookies and a cup of warm tea, and enjoy poems read aloud by MacKinnon in both Gaelic and English, intertwined beautifully with Persian, Irish, and Scottish traditional and spiritual melodies played by Saeed Foroughi on the hammered dulcimer, setar, harp, and flute, with Wayne MacIntyre on guitar.
LÀTHAICHEAN FÉILLE
Làthaichean Féill’ a chaidh a stéidheachadh
Ro’ àm na cuimhne;
Anns gach creideamh
Anns gach comunn;
Ro’n t-sìolachan do-fhaicsinneach a mheasgaicheas
Cleachdadh, òrdugh, biadh, comanachadh na daonntachd,
Bidh fìon nam féisean a’ brachadh thar chrìochan,
Far a’ robh a’ bhrìgh ’s a’ bhith a choimhead a-mach
Is a chunnaic gach nì,
A lùb glùn is ceann,
Anns na h-amannan beannaichte
Aig nach eil àm,
Ann an aonaidhean umhail a’ chianalais,
’S ann gu bheil ’ad air am faighinn ás an aon chadadh naomh,
A’ dòrtadh a-mach anns gach àite.
—Lodaidh MacFhionghain, Ràithean airson Sireadh (Clò a’Bhradain, 2017)
FEAST DAYS
Feast Days established
Before memory;
In every faith
In every society;
Via the invisible sieve that mixes
Custom, observance, food, the communion of humanity,
The wine of the festivals ferments across boundaries,
Where the essence of the entity that looked out
And watched and beheld every thing,
That bent knee and head
At the blessed times
That have no time,
In reverent unions of longing,
Were found to be of all the same sacred stuff
Pouring out everywhere.
—Lewis MacKinnon, Seasons for Seeking (Bradan Press, 2017)
