After viewing Ronald Rae’s granite sculptures I couldn’t but contrast their strength, solidity and endurance with Ronald’s weak and vulnerable drift wood refugee in St Mark’s Unitarian Church, Edinburgh –
Andrew M Hill.

Dung Beetle’s belly is solid and hard
Your refugee’s runs soft as lard

Bison, bison firm and strong
your refugee just tags along

Highland Cow stalled warm in granite
your refugee cold roams the planet

Tyger Tyger still burns bright
your refugee has nothing to light

Bear living free on rocky heights
your refugee knows only plights

Mother and Child held firm in stone
your refugee is all alone

Boy with Calf carved now forever
your refugee hasn’t even forever

Horse and sculptor for ever as one
your refugee is always undone

Wild Boar with a Severed Snout
your refugee has nought but nowt

Sheep wool warmed on granite crag
your refugee is bones and rag

Vulture and Carcass, chiseled bones clean
your refugee is grubby and lean

Fish and water swim free over rocks
your refugee sits lockedin in stocks

Flight into Egypt captured in stone
your refugee is always alone

Man of Sorrows weeps stone tears
your refugee has nothing but fears

Fallen Christ too heavy to rise
your refugee just lives and dies

Animals in War, granite rock hard
your refugee is string and card

War Veteran’s honour, a special carved name
your refugee is just one of the same

As you listen to your angel music
you absorb the shock
of each hammer blow.
Steady the tool in your hands
which knows how you long
to lose the physicality of it all,
how tired you are
of mechanical thought.
Long practice of seeing
all that there is leads
you straight to the chase
of each crease and fold
the breathe and flow
of love at ease in stone.
Lost in the rise and fall
between here and there
a bird sings on your outstretched hand.

Brutally blasted
From the granite hillside these old stones
Once naked and vulnerable
Now kindly clad
In Nature’s green velvet coat

Where once
Brightly coloured bulldozers and clanking cranes
Jostled for centre stage
Now an arena
Of scattered fallen rocks
Evidence of a battle fought and won

Now we
The intruders enter the arena
And wonder at what has gone before
Silence is broken
We clamber over the ancient stones
And tangled undergrowth
To discover the chosen stone

Then the decision
Do we disturb this chosen one
And raise it up to be
A standing stone
Undecided
We leave the sleeping giant

Reverently
We walk away allowing Nature
To continue her silent healing
To turn this gash in the landscape
Into an earthly Paradise.

Pauline MacDonald