The Shepherdess - by
The staves steady under foot; she knows which to
avoid. A creature of habit, the kettle warms.
farming
Earthstruck - by
Becoming used to his stare, she turned
her own gaze back to the depth of soil
before bedrock, that one boggy corner,
the tricky curves and angles of slopes
Filmpoem 60 / The Sword - by
Commissioned by the Olav H. Hauge Senterum in Ulvik, Norway, to produce an experimental film investigating Hauge’s life and work Alastair Cook selected six of Hauge’s shorter poems as a contiguous narrative for this filmpoem.
Field Days - by
Old Davie still did much farm work by hand.
/ Tae thin neeps, ye gae up an doon thae rowse.
/ Leave…
Drumneachie Ferm - by
The ferm wis a peat shed, a stack o hackit kinnlin
The ferm wis reeshlin corn and a tattiebogle
Could It Just Be - by
Dense sensations inside a farm animal
Announce themselves
At mutant scrapyards
Malcolm MacKerral - by
MacKerral, that was one hard winter.
Your father died on the moor road,
his bag of meal buried under snows.
Death relieved him of his load.
Love on the croft in the time of wi-fi - by
If you suffer pain And you can’t stoop yourself for fear your spine, Stiffening under the strain, Will flex, with a jolt flex again Like the neck of a heron,Or a flamingo’s s of feather and flame swaying onIts stalk, or a mind goneSpiralling into itself like a dog’s digging up a bone Or trying […]
Revelation - by
I remember once being shown the black bull
when a child at the farm for eggs and milk
excerpt from Farm by the Shore - by
small oats rye bere barley
ripe harvest in late summer
a shallow ploughing
grazing and fallow in rotation
The Field by the Lirk o’ the Hill - by
Daytime an’ nicht,
Sun, wind an’ rain;
The lang, cauld licht
O’ the spring months again.
The Neep-Fields By the Sea - by
Ye’d wonder foo the seasons rin
This side o’ Tweed an’ Tyne;
The hairst’s awa’; October-month
Cam in a whilie syne,
But the stooks are oot in Scotland yet