Follies - by
We round the Brunel coast, in a train
/ crowded with bags and elbows. Tunnels gape
/ through mountains. Someone coughs. Now at sea:
/ the…
ruins
Wedding Dress - by
A paper lantern on a balcony
/ in one of those old Edo evenings you
/ have read about, perhaps. Kabuki, tea
/ and blossom, wavering:…
Shetland - by
Our silences become the better part of us.
Wester Ross - by
Stone and rock
/ Boulder and pebble,
/ Water and stone,
/ Heather and stone,
/ Heather and water
/ And the bog cotton that is not for weaving.
/
/ Peats uncut
/ And…
Nettles - by
O sad for me Glen Aora,
/ Where I have friends no more,
/ For lowly lie the rafters,
/ …
This Was the Year - by
This was the year before the year
/ that collapsed on us, a roof brought down by snow.
/ The year of riding through…
Highland Shooting Lodge - by
Crouched up beneath a crowd of Grampian hills,
/ this old house waits to hear the report of guns
/ crisping the Autumn…
Hurricane Georges - by
Me wake up in the middle of the night
/ and me foot bottom wet. Mommy come in
/ with shower curtain to put…
Intrusion - by
Seagulls sound like Bartok.
/ Lying awake all night
/ Beside the loch
/ I hear them crying, crying
/ I am, I am, I am,
/ All ignorant…
Far-Off Settlements - by
Their burning, hot-branded outlines, their inner pathways, are all a psalm
/ sung sad and monotonous;
/ children run and yell
/ like little blips, in…
Air Tràigh Bhostaidh - by
Air mo làimh chlì
/ tha tobhta;
/ air mo làimh dheis muir a’ gluasad.
/
/ Tha ’ghainmheach bhàn a’ sìneadh
/ fo mo leth-thaobh ’s mi air…
Caritas - by
The speaking stones
/
/ These stones speak a level language,
/ murmured word by word,
/ a speech pocked and porous with loss,
/ redressed by the slow…