Oso Para Vos

Here is a musical hint about my painting entitled «Le jour du couronnement / L’obsession des Jacobites» (The Coronation Day / Jacobite Obsession»):

The painting:

«Le jour du couronnement / L’obsession des Jacobites» (The Coronation Day / Jacobite Obsession»), 2016-2020:
This 90 x 65 cm. abstract-geometric landscape oil painting on canvas features textiles reminiscent of royalty and festivities: a plush luscious green velvet hill and a shimmering blue heavy silk fabric sky, separated by a gold and silver brocade sash which represents the horizon at dusk. Swaying in the precocious Scottish wind in the Sky of Dreams is a somewhat unstable and slightly-tarnished large golden fleur de lis, and in the bottom section is a cocksure prancing silver unicorn — the fleur de lis (the royal tressure) and the unicorn (the Scottish national animal) both being closely related to Scottish history and tradition. Together, all of these elements comprise the Jacobite obsession/dream of one day crowning a new Jacobite King or Queen of Scotland. Finally, the traditional St. Andrew’s saltire or crux decussata gives way to the glittering sword / scepter of glorious resurrection — of both St. Andrew and the Jacobite dream … never again to be subordinate, tortured, enslaved, murdered or otherwise “crucified”.

Alba gu bràth!

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My vision:

1. A divided land at dusk

• Scotland is shown as split between two realms:
  • The upper world (royal, dreamlike, unstable)
  • The lower world (earthly, historical, wounded but enduring)
• The horizon (gold/silver sash) = threshold between past and future, or defeat and resurrection.

2. The dream of lost kingship

• The fleur-de-lis in the sky:
  • Represents the Jacobite claim, royal lineage, and exile.
  • But it is unstable, tarnished → the dream is fragile, not fully alive.
• This is the “obsession” — not dead, but not fulfilled.

3. Scotland endures below

• The unicorn (Scotland itself):
  • Proud, defiant, still standing.
• The castle:
  • Memory of sovereignty, now distant or diminished.
• The figure in tartan with the Saltire:
  • A modern or timeless Scot — carrying history, identity, and resistance.
  • Raises a hand: gesture of oath, defiance, or invocation.

4. Transformation of suffering

• The Saltire becoming a sword/scepter:
  • Crucifixion → resurrection
  • Oppression → sovereignty
• St. Andrew’s cross is no longer just martyrdom — it becomes power reclaimed.

5. Final movement: awakening

• The dream (Jacobite vision) begins to stir again:
  • Not necessarily literal monarchy, but liberation, dignity, self-rule
• Ending tone: not nostalgic, but prophetic.

_____________________________

The poem:

The Coronation Day / The Jacobite Obsession

At the hour when gold bleeds into silver,
and the land is stitched with a seam of dusk,
Scotland lies divided—
not by sword,
but by memory.

Above, in the restless blue of dream,
a fleur-de-lis trembles in the wind—
tarnished gold,
unsteady as a promise carried too long.
It does not fall.
It does not reign.
It remembers.

The old kings are not buried deep enough.
Their names move like mist through the glens,
half-spoken, half-sworn—
oaths that never found a crown.
Exile lingers in the marrow of the sky.

Below, the earth does not forget itself.
A unicorn rises, bright with defiance,
hooves striking nothing,
yet everything answers.
Stone keeps watch—
a darkened castle against the long recall of time.
The land endures its own silence.

And there—
a figure wrapped in the crossing of St Andrew,
cloth drawn tight against the wind of centuries—
lifts a hand
not in surrender,
but in reckoning.

For the cross was never only a burden.

It was wood, yes—
and suffering nailed into the shape of faith—
but it was also the line that cuts the sky,
the mark that divides and names,
the sign that waits to be turned.

See how it shifts.

White into fire,
thread into edge—
the Saltire drawn long and bright
becomes a blade,
becomes a sceptre,
becomes the thing that will not break again.

No more the patient crucifixion of a people
who learned to bow and to bury their own tongues.
No more the quiet grinding of history
into dust beneath another throne.

Something stirs—
not loudly,
not yet—
but like heat beneath stone,
like breath returning to a long-held name.

The dream was never only a dream.
It was hunger.
It was inheritance.
It was the wound that refused to close.

And now—

in the hush before voices gather,
in the space where silence begins to fracture—
the land remembers how to stand.

Not for a king alone,
nor for a crown of borrowed gold,
but for itself—

unyielding,
unquiet,
alive.

— 

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Latha a’ Chrùnaidh / Obsèisean nan Seumasach

Aig an uair nuair a shileas òr gu airgead,
’s an talamh fuaighte le seam an fheasgair,
tha Alba na laighe air a roinn—
chan ann le claidheamh,
ach le cuimhne.

Os cionn, ann an gorm mì-shocair an aisling,
crithidh an lili rìoghail sa ghaoith—
òr air a thruailleadh,
neo-sheasmhach mar ghealladh ro fhada air a ghiùlan.
Cha tuit e.
Cha riaghl e.
Cuimhnichidh e.

Chan eil na seann rìghrean air an tiodhlacadh domhainn gu leòr.
Gluaisidh an ainmean mar cheò tro na glinn,
leth-labhairt, leth-mhionn—
mionn nach d’ fhuair crùn riamh.
Tha fògradh a’ fuireach ann an smior na speura.

Gu h-ìosal, cha dìochuimhnich an talamh e fhèin.
Èiridh an t-aon-adharcach, soilleir le dùbhlan,
a chrògan a’ bualadh air neoni,
gidheadh freagraidh a h-uile nì.
Cumaidh clach faire—
caisteal dorcha an aghaidh cuimhne fhada na h-ùine.
Mairidh an dùthaich na sàmhchair fhèin.

Agus an sin—
figear paisgte ann an crois Naoimh Anndra,
an clò teann an aghaidh gaoth nan linntean—
togidh e làmh
chan ann ann an gèilleadh,
ach ann an cunntas.

Oir cha robh a’ chrois riamh dìreach na h-eallach.

B’ e fiodh a bh’ innte, seadh—
agus fulangas tàirngeil ann an cruth creidimh—
ach b’ i cuideachd an loidhne a ghearras an speur,
an comharra a sgaras ’s a dh’ ainmicheas,
an soidhne a tha a’ feitheamh ri tionndadh.

Faic mar a dh’ atharraicheas i.

Geal gu teine,
snàth gu oir—
an t-Sailtear air a shìneadh fada, soilleir
na lann,
na shlat-rìoghail,
na rud nach bris tuilleadh.

Chan eil barrachd de cheusadh foighidneach sluaigh
a dh’ ionnsaich cromadh ’s an teangannan fhèin a thiodhlacadh.
Chan eil barrachd de bhleith shàmhach na h-eachdraidh
gu duslach fo rìgh-chathair eile.

Tha rudeigin a’ gluasad—
chan eil àrd,
chan eil fhathast—
ach mar theas fo chlach,
mar anail a’ tilleadh gu ainm a chaidh a chumail ro fhada.

Cha robh an aisling riamh dìreach na aisling.
B’ e acras a bh’ innte.
B’ e oighreachd a bh’ innte.
B’ e an leòn nach dùin.

Agus a-nis—

anns an tost mus cruinnich guthan,
anns an àite far a bheil sàmhchair a’ tòiseachadh air sgàineadh—
cuimhnichidh an dùthaich mar a sheasas i.

Chan ann airson rìgh a-mhàin,
no airson crùn de òr iasaid,
ach air a son fhèin—

gun ghèilleadh,
gun tàmh,
beò.

— 

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Details from the painting: