Those who sacrifice innocent lives to politics and to the ego of politics
Will never find within themselves the spiritual tools to forgive themselves
Or in old age supping with old memories and stacks of old calendars find
The conscience long lost to such a bloody cost the last cries of our children
Their curses now a frightening religion a lost religion a trapped religion
A lonely room a lonely room curtains drawn and no redemption
Ronald Rae
Something about fires evacuation and the bulldozers moving in
Something about all over again the massacre of the innocents is upon us
From the pages of the bible those of combat the whole thing again upon us
Something about doing the right thing and carrying out what has to be done
Something about the clothes of our inhumanity and again we are wearing them
Something about repeating over and over the same crimes against ourselves
Something about someone else’s problem that it’s never ours
Something about being displaced and forgotten and there’s no end to it
Ronald Rae
Sun burnishes the granite,
a blessing on the stone
making it warm as human skin
but still as hard as bone.
Sculpture of the Fallen Christ
like an erratic boulder:
a child at play has clambered up
to perch upon his shoulder.
She rides upon the solid rock,
joyfully, safely there:
rough stone supports her hands and feet,
the wind plays with her hair.
I see a place of refuge
for a troubled little girl:
God’s back being broad enough to bear
the weight of all the world.
Jan Sutch Pickard – Wild Goose Publications
Granite: 8x17x7 ft 20.00 tonnes. Location: St Andrew Square Garden, Edinburgh. For Sale. POA.
The Lion was carved from a twenty tonne boulder of pink Corrennie granite from Aberdeenshire.
It took over a year to complete using hand tools only. At present the sculpture is on loan to Essential Edinburgh and on exhibition in St Andrew Square Gardens in Edinburgh City Centre. If you would like to purchase this unique sculpture please contact pauline@ronaldrae.co.uk
The Lion is the traditional symbol both of power and of Scottish identity. The sculpture was first sited in Holyrood Park between the Royal Palace of Holyrood House and the Scottish Parliament, and beneath that other lion couchant, Arthur’s Seat. It moved to St Andrew Square, Edinburgh in 2010.
The Lion has been voted the best-loved sculpture in Edinburgh. One rarely passes it without seeing the public engage with it – either taking photos or climbing on it as children do. There is no doubt it is greatly loved. In 2008 a formal petition was drawn up by the Scottish Blue Badge Guides to keep the Lion at Holyrood, plus thousands of signatures from local people and visitors to the city who wanted the Lion to stay there, which resulted in a further two years stay for the sculpture on loan to the Scottish Parliamentary Corporate Body. However the contract ended in April 2010 and could not be extended.
Ronald Rae thanks all those who have supported the Lion of Scotland sculpture. He has been overwhelmed by the number of letters and emails he has received over the past ten years. He hopes that the sculpture will eventually be purchased for the city.
No open book of scripture is a match for a hive of bees
Not words and their completeness but pollens and the drunkenness of their sweetness
To see something of what it means to be inside the crowning of a great miracle
Take yourself with a torch into the world of bees
Witness the sweet and dying returns of a God kept in mind
In the hives of ascension and across our human lands
The democracy of being able to sting is the democracy of restraint
Better applied is the soothing hive and its sacred schemes
Ronald Rae
Humanity first and politics last it was a great Mother who said this
In grief we are all brothers and sisters the clouds overhead said this
And the differences between us those differences are really wanting to befriend us
Of all who live who intend for the soul that our humanity will never desert us
Even if what we see so many wounded lives lying in the street
Even if walking with us the liberation of evil is smiling at us
Always it will be humanity first our humanity a location every human being can trust
Humanity first who was it reported this who was it kneeling there
It was a face without a name it was compassion without asking for it
It was healing identified with God it was God who said this
Ronald Rae
I watched a little boy flying his kite no ordinary kite
At the end of the string flying higher and higher
Is a plum tree hanging with fruit
How bizarre is this and how fantastically courageous
A little boy given the gift of imagination
That flying his kite the plum tree
Will drop its fruit into the hungry mouths waiting below
Food for a country at war and a kite
For the people to stop hating one another
A kite controlled by a little boy
And a plum tree dropping its fruit
I think love itself is overcome with joy
And I see it now if you want to fly a kite
Make sure you have the imagination to fly it
Ronald Rae
Tap tap, it is the waking time,
The long release comes not from me,
I am no chick to crack my shell
but need the midwife’s hands,
tap tapping out emergence with their pain and skill.
Even deep in sleep I held a dream of sky,
Of how I’d shape and lift my head
to my old stardust home
of aeons and aeons ago.
And now I feel the swirl of air, the damp of rain,
I see the moon and sun that rise
and light the sparkle of my back
where I will welcome children
who with their dreams will ride me,
call me by name, and give me soul,
for I am Emily Bear.
Jenny Melmoth
The world as it must become
Countries and borders dissolving
Faster than God can blink his eye
Migration is on the move
Ronald Rae
Before the magnificent illusion got going
Before my mother’s going into labour
Before the breaking of waters
Before the forceps mark on my brain
Before God was thought of
My birth-voice gave majesty to the unknown
A voice from the crown of possibility
The great waiting of waiting to be born
My earth-voice a spate of promise
My birth-voice an umbilical
Something to do with the speed
Of light catching up with itself
Before my birth what a commotion
Ronald Rae