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
  • >
  • Elizabeth Burns
  • >
  • Solway
Donate Donate icon Ask a Librarian Ask a Librarian icon

Solway

Elizabeth Burns

Love unfolded then, like crumpled petals
opening into sunlight,
unfurling at the stroke of spring

as we walked the seven miles of estuary,
reaching, after long mudflats, the beach,
the windless bay, the candle of the lighthouse,
waxen in the hazy air that hung like gauze
between us and the islands

and through an undertow of sea-mist
came the warmth of April sun
nuzzling at our dazzled, new-born skin

until, at dusk, the madder of the sky
shed splintered light on wrinkled waves
and sea breathed inland,
mingling damp salt air
with the scent of wild narcissi.

Fragments of this day remain: primroses,
pressed in a book, a sea-stained map,
and memories, clearer than photographs,
of glances, places, shades of light

and of your touch, when, swift as seabirds’ wings,
you flew into the inlet of my arms.

(Above the estuary, the pale moon shifts, and the tide, like a bale of cloth unfolded, is pulled towards the land, a swathe of rippled silk, spilling over sand, easing under the hulls of fishing boats and brushing the tips of bulrushes, edging inland as far as it can reach – until, gathered into narrowed, earthbound arms, seawater blurs into river, a rush of it flowing from Galloway hills, down into this saltmouth that it floods with freshwater, licking at the briny tongue until the dawn, when, drawn by the moon’s odd magnet, the tide slips back towards the shore).

After seven years of plenty
we’re walking back along this shore-road
where the primroses are flowering again
and our hearts, new-milked each morning,
are still brim-full of love.

Out on the acres of the estuary’s wet sand
the shelducks catch the springlight
on their wings, and south, past Silloth,
the hills make the pearl-grey outline
of another country.

Inland is a darkness of sorrel and wild garlic,
a deep green scattered by the stars
of wood anemones’ white flowers,
and in a hedgerow, frail as eggshell,
are nested five new violets.

Such things become the sediment of memory,
the layers we gather over years,
flecked with the bright silt of omen

like this heron, fish swinging from its mouth,
flying up towards pale April sun
that rubs the muddy shallows of the Solway
into folds of silver.


Elizabeth Burns

from The Gift of Light (diehard, 1999)

Reproduced by permission of the author.

Tags:

Dumfries & Galloway estuaries falling in love memory Scotland walking
Share this
Facebook
Twitter
Email

Learn more

Elizabeth Burns1957 - 2015

Having spent much of her life in Scotland, Elizabeth Burns latterly lived in Lancaster where she taught creative writing.
More about Elizabeth Burns

Join

Become a Borrower or support our work by becoming a Friend of SPL.
Join us

Podcasts

Our audio programme of poets, poems and news for you to listen to.
Listen Now
  • 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