Each time I called for him he was perfectly ready,equipment checked and in smooth order,pared to essentials. And I, cluttered with gadgets,would clatter behind as he led the way downstairs. In the boat, as befits a sedulous angler,he was taciturn, though between essential wordshe would give that courteous, gentle smilethat was his signature, before his […]
Built like a gorilla but less timid,
thick-fleshed, steak-coloured, with two
hieroglyphs in his face that mean
trouble,
That’s me in the painting.
/ My face smooth and brow clear,
/ for I do not worry over
/ what I cannot see.
I saw you from my window, Margaret.
/ I was watching the seagulls swooping the sky.
/ The seagulls, I was telling myself, know
/ today…
The heid-bummer, prood wi a ryaltie o a shillin a ton
/ lik the hovein o the coals alow the hauch o…
Nineteen fifty six was a momentous year,
/ The year of Suez…
Ana Dali, Salvador’s sister,
/ shown here in an ominous frock,
/ eloped with an amorous easel
/ to the melting apartment block.
/ She waves through a…
Remembering an Edinburgh neighbour
/
/
/ Descending her garden path
/ she turns, backtracks indoors
/ again, and into the front room
/ to straighten a…
Five thousand years between us, and yet
not a moment, it seems – recognition
like that spark you’d know how to strike
from stone.
Autumn, and the nights are darkening.
The old lady tells us of her past once more.
in memory of my grandfather
/ (after Schubert’s piano sonata in C minor D958)
/
/
/ Hammer-blows ring on a hull in dry-dock
/ then dazzling sparks…
How does she feel? Hey, girl, did it feel strange / To be waiting for the a-changing times to change?…
