On 21 December 1988, the longest night of the year, Pan Am Flight 103 fell on the small town of Lockerbie, killing all 259 passengers and crew, and 11 Lockerbie residents. It remains the worst terrorist attack on UK soil. The Wishin’ Gate Leuk beneath ma gravestane,through the keekie-hole when the rowan’s laden,when the summer’s […]
Brown burn water dropping
/ Between the grey stones,
/ The lapse and the murmur,
/ The bright overtones
/ Of…
Scotland small? Our multiform, our infinite Scotland small?
/ Only as a patch of hillside may be a cliché corner
/ To a fool…
An unco sough i’ the gloamin’
/ An’ a flaff o’ risin’ win’,
/ A glisk o’ stoundin’ waters
/ …
I sing the bonny banks o Fleet,
/ Where Nature spreads her various treasure;…
The monks liked cats for company, I hear.
/ I can believe it.
/ Felines of ink and gold
/ Arch the capitals,
/ Curve into the celibate…
1. EVENING SKETCH
/
/ Night squats on the grey estate: the river,
/ the roads turn black. Up a deserted side-street
/ darkness tears away from…
Chambered cairn: third millennia B.C.
/
/ The Cairnholy sun
/ dyed the cold sky red,
/ dispensed with forests;
/ made sea echo stone.
/ For, in winter, Wigtown
/ deals elements;…
The derelict hotel, the tower on the hill,
/ water in the tower,
/ the height of the tower, the place I…
/
/ The stairways can’t…
Galloway greens again
the river silvered with
white eggs, sharp scent of cucumber
sweet vernal grass
vanillas air
Skeich wes the hert i the spring o the year
/ whan the well-sawn yird begoud tae steer
/ an the plewlan’s promise gledened…
Across the isthmus
/ and the broken neck of dykes
/ we leave the low boasts
/ of cattle, the sight
/ of dry fields combed flat
/ to baize.
/ Here,…
