Skip to content

Scottish Poetry Library

Register/Sign in
Shopping Bag Shopping Bag
Bringing people and poems together
  • Home
  • Poetry
    • Poets
    • Poems
    • Makar – National Poet
      • Our Waking Breath: A Poem-letter from Scotland to Ukraine
      • A Woman’s A Woman
      • The story of the Makar – National Poet of Scotland
    • Best Scottish Poems
    • Spiorad an Àite
      Spirit of Place
    • The Trysting Thorns
    • Poetry Ambassadors
      Tosgairean na Bàrdachd
      • Poetry Commissions: Walter Scott 250
        Coimiseanan Bàrdachd: Walter Scott 250
      • Poetry Ambassadors 2021
    • Posters
    • Podcasts
  • Library
    • Become a borrower
    • Catalogue
    • Collections
    • Ask a librarian
    • Copyright enquiries
  • Learning
    • SQA set texts
    • Learning resources
    • Designing sensory poetry activities
    • Children’s poems in Scots
    • National Poetry Day archive
    • New to poetry?
    • Advice for poets
  • Events
    • What’s On
    • Meeting rooms and venue hire
    • Exhibitions
  • Shop
    • Poetry Highlights
    • Entropie Books
    • Stichill Marigold Press
    • Poems for Doctors, Nurses & Teachers
    • Scottish Poetry
    • Poetry Pamphlet Cards
    • Help
  • About us
    • Our story
    • Our people
    • Company Papers & Policies
    • Our projects
    • Our building
    • FAQs
    • Find us
  • Support us
    • Become a Friend
    • Donate
  • Blog
Shopping BagShopping Bag
Ask a librarian
  • Home
  • >
  • Poetry
  • >
  • Thomas A. Clark
  • >
  • excerpt from Farm by the Shore
Donate Donate icon Ask a Librarian Ask a Librarian icon

excerpt from Farm by the Shore

Thomas A. Clark

small oats rye bere barley
ripe harvest in late summer
a shallow ploughing
grazing and fallow in rotation

 

 

corncrake and corn bunting
great yellow bumble bee
oystercatcher lapwing golden plover
orchid vetch and clover

 

 

when no one is home
the strawberry roan
stands in the rain
forlorn

 

 

mattress of heather
of bracken or eelgrass
pillow of cottongrass
stuffed with a down
of coltsfoot or reedmace
floor strewn with bog myrtle

 

 

strong rope of heather
honeysuckle bridle
twisted birch bark tether
fish trap of sedge
purple moor-grass anchor rope


Thomas A. Clark

from Farm by the Shore (Manchester: Carcanet, 2017).
Reproduced with the permission of the author.

Tags:

21st century poems Best Scottish Poems 2017 birds farming nature scottish poems summer
Share this
Facebook
Twitter
Email

Learn more

Best Scottish Poems 2017

edited by Roddy Woomble
Find out more

Thomas A. Clarkb.1944

The poetry of Thomas A. Clark has been consistently attentive to form and to the experience of walking in the landscape, returning again and again to the lonely terrain of the Highlands and Islands.  
More about Thomas A. Clark

Join

Become a Borrower or support our work by becoming a Friend of SPL.
Join us
  • Newsletter signup
  • Accessibility
  • Terms & Conditions
  • Privacy Policy
Scottish Poetry Library
5 Crichton's Close, Canongate
Edinburgh EH8 8DT
Tel: +44 (0)131 557 2876
© Scottish Poetry Library 2022.
The Scottish Poetry Library is a registered charity (No. SCO23311).
City of Edinburgh logo Green Arts Initiative logo Creative Scotland logo
Scottish Poetry Library