Poems for Upper Nithsdale
Sanquhar pattern
Grey frae a distance
but bring yer een close ye’ll see
there’s black and there’s white.
Doun the mine
Wat ootside and in; a dreipin shaft,
a ticht passage, black as miners’ lungs
tae seams buckled and bent like crippled banes.
Miners’ library
Nae gutterin caundles
in this vault hewn
frae the rock o learnin
flooded wi the licht
o a thousand books.
Auld post office
Lang syne, lang afore
BT’s blue-and-reid
callan blaad his chanter,
they heard the horn.
Nae faxes then
and nae modems, naethin
but a stage-coach
or a cuddy’s back.