Niall Campbell

February Morning

The winter light was still to hit the window,

and all my other selves were still asleep,

when, standing with this child in all our bareness,

I found that I was a ruined bridge, or one 

that stood so long half-built and incomplete;

at other times I’d been a swinging gate,

a freed skiff – then his head dropped in the groove 

of my neck, true as a keystone, and I fixed: 

all stone and good use, two shores with one crossing.

The morning broke, I kissed his head, and stood.

*

Midnight

My heart had been repeating oh heart, poor heart

all evening. And all because I’d held my child,

oh heart, and found that age was in my cup now;

poor heart, it bare knew anything

but the life of a young axeman in the forest,

whistler, tree-feller, swinging with the wind,

where oh heart, poor heart isn’t the heard song,

where there is no cry in the night, no cradling,

no heart grown heavy, heavier, with opening.

*

The Night Watch

It’s 1 a.m. and someone’s knocking

at sleep’s old, battered door – and who

could it be but this boy I love,

calling for me to come out, into

the buckthorn field of being awake –

and so I go, finding him there

no longer talking – but now crying

and crying, wanting to be held;

but shhh, what did you want to show

that couldn’t wait until the morning?

Was it the moon – because I see it:

the first good bead on a one-bead string;

was it the quiet – because I owned it,

once – but found I wanted more.

*

Moth

The night he cried himself into our bed

I couldn’t find the roadway back to sleep

so went for water – filling the glass twice,

and felt that midnight thrill of being alive;

I heard the clock in the hall in the bedroom –

and tick there he was; tick, and there, his mother;

and seeing them I thought about the moth

flown back to lie beside its chrysalis,

both – dreaming and remembering the field

one housed and one flew in: the womb’s warm evening:

windless, but with a thousand tailwinds rising;

starless, but with a thousand points of light.

13 Midnight

14 First Nights

15 Thinning Apples

16 First Illness

17 Keeping the Poacher’s Light

19 Crusoe, One Year on the Island

20 Clapping Game

21 All the Doubts of the Late Evening

22 Moth

23 Lyrics

25 Packhorse

26 The Address

28 Poacher

29 A New Father Thinks About Those Running Home

30 Dear,

31 The Night Watch

32 The Disembarked

33 Go There

34 The Water Carrier

35 Returning to Work

36 Measuring Heat Loss in the Arctic

37 Dream

38 Blackberries

39 Poetry When Working

40 An Island Vigil

41 The Cut

42 Four Memories in No Particular Order

43 Horseshoe Crab

44 Proof

45 Living in the City and Dreaming of the Winter Beach

46 Two Poems after Cuevas Lopes

46 Picking Day

47 Leaving Town

48 Other Branches

49 February Morning

50 Glasgow

51 Cooling a Meal by the Outside Door

52 Capture

53 Tightrope

54 Thirties

55 Language

56 From the Spanish

58 Good Night

61 Acknowledgements

63 Biographical note

'Niall Campbell’s ruggedly beautiful poems have a three-dimensional quality, as if sculpted from their images of grit, rope and sand: others seem to come from the sea itself, distilled down to their essence – short, intimate poems with a long finish. They welcome you into their world with a quiet assurance, in the voice of a seasoned poet. A stunning debut' – Patience Agbabi, on Moontide

'The persisting metaphor of the sea moves continually through this remarkable first collection. These are beautifully crafted poems which grow in impact with reading - from ghost dogs to beached whales, from Eriskay to Grez sur Loing, from Dostoevsky to Zola, the strength of this collection lies in its scope as much as its skill and originality. Though they are poems of islands and margins, they are neither insular nor marginal – their true value lies is their relevance - they talk to us of concerns that are our own; the forces and desires they describe, also drive us. Through poems which are in turn darkly lyrical, atmospheric, humorous and moving, Campbell proves himself an important new voice and a genuine talent to be reckoned with' – John Glenday, on Moontide

'Full of striking moments, the poems of Moontide are illuminated by powerful lyric impulses.' – David Wheatley, Guardian, on Moontide

'In his understated debut collection, Campbell, who spent his childhood on South Uist in the Outer Hebrides, draws on an intimately known landscape as witness to solitude and shared lives.' – Maria Crawford, Financial Times, Summer books 2014, on Moontide

'With precise language, musicality and insight, Campbell’s first collection explores solitude, companionship and memory against a backdrop of closely observed nature. His intimate poems draw on the seascapes and myths of his native Eriskay, in the Outer Hebrides, but take the same sharp-focused eye to other places, too... Meditative and haunting – my favourite poetry book of 2014 so far' – Juanita Coulson, The Lady, on Moontide

Niall Campbell reads 'The Nightwatch' from Noctuary for the Scottish Poetry Library.