Poetry Wednesday; for those in Exile

Above, Jules Dalou (exiled artist) by Rodin.
Poetry Wednesday; for those in Exile

Dedicated to all those past, present and future who find them selves in exile from their homeland. This weeks art work was not chosen for its content but because the artist was exiled from his country of origin.

My contribution to Poetry Wednesday this week is a tribute for all those who have found them selves in exile. To be exiled, for what ever reason isn’t a modern phenomena, people have lost their homes and been forced from their land for all sorts of reasons through out history.

I suppose the story of exile most familiar to me is the story of the highland clearances.

The pace of these Highland Clearances accelerated about 1815, or once the Napolionic wars were finally over. The price of kelp, fish and cattle, the highlands traditional produce, fell into decline and sheep rearing became the favoured produce of the highlands. The most bloody and notorious Clearances took place on the estates of the Countess of Sutherland, who owned a million acres in northern Scotland. Between 1807 and 1821, around 15,000 people were thrown off her land; evictions were carried out by Patrick Sellar, the estate factor, with great brutality and complete indifference to the crofters suffering. Homes were torched, possessions scattered and women and children terrorized. Sellars men arrived on horseback and showed no mercy, they ransacked tiny traditional homesteads and drove the inhabitants from the land.  No mercy was shown to the young, the old, the sick or the infirm, they were all evicted with equal barbarity and indifference. Those who failed to leave by the appointed time had their homes burnt in front of them, at least one elderly woman, who failed to get out of her home after it was torched, died from her burns. Sellar was charged with her murder but a jury of landowners acquitted him, and the sheriff who heard the case was sacked. Thousands of dispossessed Highlanders were left to scratch out a living from on the poor soil of tiny crofts. Then came famine which forced large-scale emigration to America and Canada and left the huge uninhabited areas found in the region today.
More about the clearances here;

http://www.visitscotland.com/guide/scotland-factfile/scottish-history/highland-clearances

Many of Scotland’s historical events have been turned into song, poem or ballad, more stories of the clearances can be found here;

http://www.cranntara.org.uk/clear6.htm

Many of these were composed aboard ships full of the exiled heading for new lives far away and others were composed in their new lands in memory of the homeland left behind.

The Last Sabbath in Strathnaver;
 before the Burnings

Many of the people living in Strathnaver at the time of the clearances belonged to the MacKay clan. One of them, Annie MacKay, was a child when the evictions took place. This poem was written by her many years later.

The Last Sabbath in Strathnaver;
 before the Burnings

 
'Twas not the beacon light of war,
Nor yet the "slogan" cry,
That chilled each heart, and blanched each cheek,
In the country of Mackay,
And made them march with weary feet,
As men condemned to die.

Ah! had it been their country's foe
That they were called to brave,
How loudly would the piobrachd sound,
How proud their "bratach" wave;
How joyfully each man would march,
Tho' marching to his grave.

No! 'Twas a cruel, sad behest,
An alien chief's command,
Depriving them of house and home,
Their country and their land;
Dealing a death-blow at their hearts,
Binding the "strong right hand".

Slowly and sadly, down the glen
They took their weary way,
The sun was shining overhead
Upon that sweet spring day,
And earth was throbbing with the life
Of the great glad month of May.

The deer were browsing on the hills,
And looked with wondering eye;
The birds were singing their songs of praise,
The smoke curled to the sky,
And the river added its gentle voice
To nature's melody.

No human voice disturbed the calm,
No answering smile was there,
For men and women walked along,
Mute pictures of despair;
This was the last sad Sabbath they
Would join in praise and prayer.

And men were there whose brows still bore
The trace of many scars,
Who oft their vigils kept with death
Beneath the midnight stars,
Where'er their country needed men,
Brave men to fight her wars.

And grey-haired women tall and strong,
Erect and full of grace,
Meet mothers of a noble clan,
A brave and stalwart race,
And many a maiden young and fair,
With pallid, tear-stained face.

They met upon the river's brink,
By the church so old and grey,
They could not sit within its walls
Upon this sunny day;
The Heavens above would be their dome,
And hear what they would say.

The preacher stood upon a bank,
His face was pale and thin,
And, as he looked upon his flock,
His eyes with tears were dim,
And they awhile forgot their grief,
And fondly looked at him
 
His  text "Be faithful unto death,
And I will give to thee
A crown of life that will endure
To all eternity."
And he pleaded God's dear promises,
So rich, so full, so free;
Then said "Ah friends, an evil day
Has come upon our Glen,
Now sheep and deer are held of more
Account than living men;
It is a lawless law that yet
All nations will condemn.
"I would not be a belted knight,
Nor yet a wealthy lord,
Nor would I, for a coronet,
Have said the fatal word
That made a devastation worse
Than famine, fire, or sword.
"The path before each one of us
Is long, and dark, and steep;
I go away a shepherd lone,
Without a flock to keep,
And ye without a shepherd go,
My well beloved sheep.
"But God our Father will not part
With one of us, I know,
Though in the cold wide world our feet
May wander to and fro;
If we like children cling to Him,
With us He'll ever go.
"Farewell my people, fare ye well,
We part to meet no more,
Until we meet before the throne,
On God's eternal shore,
Where parting will not break the heart.
Farewell for ever more."
He sat upon the low green turf,
His head with sorrow bowed;
Men sobbed upon their father's graves,
And women wept aloud,
And there was not a tearless eye
In that heart-stricken crowd.
The tune of "Martyrdom" was sung
By lips with anguish pale,
And as it rose upon the breeze
It swelled into a wail,
And, like a weird death coronach,
It sounded in the vale:
"Beannaicht' gu robh gu siorruidh buan
Ainm glormhor uasal fein
Lionadh a ghloir gach uile thir
Amen agus Amen."
And echo lingering on the hills
Gave back the sad refrain.
Methinks there never yet was heard
Such a pathetic cry
As rose from that dear, hallowed spot
Unto the deep blue sky,
'Twas the death wail of a broken clan -
The noble clan Mackay.


The highland clearances happened 200 years ago; but just 50 years ago, on the other side of the world, another people found their homes torched and their lands stolen.

In 1948 the United Nations plan for Palestine (which was still under British control) to be split into two distinct countries, a Jewish homeland and an Arab State, was rejected by the people living in the area and neighbouring states  who supported them. The British mandate expired in May by which time civil war was raging which ultimately resulted in large chunks of land originally designated by the UN as Palistinian land being seized by the new national of Israel ( with a great deal of financial backing from the US and UK). More than 700,000 people from the seized lands fled into neighbouring countries and ended up in refugee camps.  Those who remember the day claim they were ruthlessly driven from their ancestral lands by Israeli soldiers in a deliberate campaign of terror.
Read more here;
http://middleeast.about.com/od/israelandpalestine/f/me080511.htm

and here

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2001/may/15/qanda

The Poet; Mahmud Darwish

Mahmud Darwish was born in Al-Birwah near Akka in 1941. In 1948, his tiny village was attacked by the Zionists and the  people were forced to leave their homes and flee to other places. When Darwish later returned to Palestine to find his village, it was totally ruined and an Israeli settlement stood in its place.
Darwish wrote his first poems when he was in the elementary school in the village of Der Al-Asad. In 1970 he managed to find his way to Moscow and from there travelled to  Cairo. He was the head of The Palestinian Center for Research, editor of Shu'oon Falasteeniyyah (Palestinian Affairs Magazine), head of The General Association of Palestinian Writers and Journalists, editor of Al-Karmil Magazine of the GAPWJ, and thenThe Executive Committee of the PLO. He resigned from this position in 1993.

Read more here;
http://www.dhfaf.com/poetry.php?name=Poetry&op=shqas&poemsid=416

For Ibrahim Marzouk
From early dusk the day was inscrutable

The sun shows up, lazy as usual

A mineral ash, eastward, blocks the horizon. . .

In the veins of clouds

In household pipes

The water was hard. . .

A desperate autumn in the life of Beirut

***

Death spread from the palace

to the radio to the salesman of sex

To the vegetable market

***

What is it wakes you now?

Exactly five o'clock

And thirty people killed

Go back to sleep

It is a time of death and a time of fire

***

Ibrahim was a painter

He painted water

He was a deck for lilies to grow on

And terrible if woken up at dawn

***

But his children were spun of lilac and sunlight

They wanted milk and a loaf of bread

***

Inscrutable day. My face

A telegram made of wheat in a field of bullets

What is it wakes you now

Exactly five o'clock

And thirty people killed

***

Bread never had this taste before

This blood this whispering texture this grand apprehension complete essence this voice this time this colour this art this human energy this secret this magic this unique movement from the cavern of origin to

the gang war to the tragedy of Beirut

***

At exactly five o'clock

Who was dying?

***

Into his hands Ibrahim took the last color

Color of the secrets in the elements

A painter and a rebel he painted

A land teeming with people, oak trees, and war

Ocean waves, working people, street vendors, countryside

***

And he paints

In the miracle of bread

Artwork in this post by exiled French Artist
Jules Dalou 1838 – 1902.

Dalou was exiled from France in 1871 for his left-wing connections; he was a member of the radical group, the Paris Commune. This enforced exile happened at just the time his work was beginning to be recognized and his great talent appreciated. He had established himself as a successful sculptor and his fame was growing. Following his exile, he lived in London for nine years, creating portrait sculptures and domestic scenes which were not at all in keeping with his political philosophy. His politics were modern, socialist and inclusive; his art remained classical, academic and elite. He was a contemporary of Rodin, and best known for his large-scale national monuments. These can still be seen at important sites in Paris, including the Place de la Nation and Père-Lachaise cemetery. Less is known about the English period of his career. He was an artist in exile who did not speak English, he initially confined himself to a small circle of French-speaking artists and patrons who frequented London, many of whom were his benefactors and members of the English aristocracy, (something else in his life that conflicted with his socialist ideals).
Read more here;
http://opa.yale.edu/news/article.aspx?id=6743