A Galloway Burn in June - by
Brown burn water dropping
/ Between the grey stones,
/ The lapse and the murmur,
/ The bright overtones
/ Of…
Place: Dumfries & Galloway
‘Scotland small?’ - by
Scotland small? Our multiform, our infinite Scotland small?
/ Only as a patch of hillside may be a cliché corner
/ To a fool…
Solway Tide - by
An unco sough i’ the gloamin’
/ An’ a flaff o’ risin’ win’,
/ A glisk o’ stoundin’ waters
/ …
The Banks of Fleet - by
I sing the bonny banks o Fleet,
/ Where Nature spreads her various treasure;…
Whithorn and Elrig - by
The monks liked cats for company, I hear.
/ I can believe it.
/ Felines of ink and gold
/ Arch the capitals,
/ Curve into the celibate…
The River - by
1. EVENING SKETCH
/
/ Night squats on the grey estate: the river,
/ the roads turn black. Up a deserted side-street
/ darkness tears away from…
At Cairnholy - by
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;…
Hydro Hotel - by
The derelict hotel, the tower on the hill,
/ water in the tower,
/ the height of the tower, the place I…
/
/ The stairways can’t…
Cree Seasons - by
autumn cree
/
/ leaves kaleidoscope
/ amber, gold, russet, orange
/ amadou fungus mushrooms
/ migratory geese cry
/ berries, nuts squirrel into banks
/ autumn mists ghost in
/
/ winter cree
/
/ words hibernate in…
Seasons - by
Skeich wes the hert i the spring o the year
/ whan the well-sawn yird begoud tae steer
/ an the plewlan’s promise gledened…
Fastness - by
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,…
Songs for the Falling Angel - by
Prologue: The Song of the Falling Angel
/
/ It may be ten lifetimes or more
/ before the Johnstones, Maxwells, Bells and Jardines
/ find the…