Boundaries

No artist sat down to design them

yet they are pencil-scored across the landscape

like an architect`s plans.

They evolved

from peasant knowledge

of the fields, the marshes,

the massive shoulders of the hills

their cliffs and dips and rises,

and from man`s need

of boundaries.

Through all the bitter winters

they survive

and function in their roles.

They hold the farms and steadings and the cottages

in stony arms

and on the hill

sheep use them for a bield.

Throbbing within them is a mini-world

where stoats

in stylish ermine

glissade a sinuous route through labyrinthine paths

and pirouetting whitrits dart and snap

at panicky voles.

Wrens and wagtails find small window-holes for nests,

green velvet mosses and the grey lace lichens

keep them dressed.

If you had told the dry-stane dykers

that they were sculptors

they would have laughed

and said that they were only builders

doing a job:

yet like the mystic standing stones

dykes have become an art form,

and when the sun shines on them

with the light of evening

their cold greyness

glows warm.

They come alive

and rise

like golden snakes

rippling their way upwards

to a high horizon.

Christmas Dreamings

It came and went so fast

through the gloomy not-quite-dark

of a December dawn.

Perhaps

it was an angel

stirring a small round hole

in the sky directly above

with the end of his harp  -

an overflow,

but for an instant liquid sunlight gold from out of Heaven

poured into my secret grey-walled garden

nowhere else

and on the earth

I was the focus

of a blessing.

Gold showered me, washed me, warmed me.

I stood, entranced

beneath tree branches dripped in gold

dark-burnished

as a jeweller`s treasure trove.

Stone and winter grass were drenched,

brown-feathered winter birds exotic in the glow.

It was a beneficence.

Then it was gone,sky-hole obscured, suddenly cold.

Time for snow.

It came in dancing swirls

crystals and pearls

ten minutes and the ground was ermine-robed.

Hints for the Christmas dreamings  -

think light.

Dream you a gold christmas

dream you a white -

angel gleamings

from that December dawning

for the story of the golden Christmas night.

Enough.

       The first of May:

a clear night with the hint of frost

          quite cold

but with the sky horizon-blushed

in pink and pleasurable thoughts

        of summer`s breath.

       My first year here

has come and passed and nearly gone.

       I feel the urge

        to light a fire

           of debris

in my cottage-garden wilderness.

    Soon, dry twigs crackle

        sparks spit out

    flames flicker and leap high.

I throw and poke and prod until its heart glows white

   and stand back as heat sears me

       strangely satisfied.

        Tandlemuir -

    The Bonfire Moor.

Pagan men who danced round Beltane flame

    and named this place

        came

and vanished on a summer`s breath.

     "Light the fire,

      dance the dance,

taste the goodness of the earth".

    It is enough.

Fighting Back.

Nearly forty years since the McKellars

moved from "Heathfield"

and the bulldozers breenged in

to lay it low.

There`s been no healing to its wound.

The gaps are raw and sore,

jagged,open

crying outrage still,

the stone walls not yet ready to collapse

and "coorie doon"

into the role of scenic ruin.

What was a neat patch

of parsley, golden wonders,

geometric cabbage rows

is now a sea of nettle

flowing strong into the shore of moorland grass

with the corrugated iron flotsam of a nissen hut

which housed the tups

one more reminder of a living past.

Beyond the dyke

even the birds have flown.

Where once there was the peewit cry

the drum of snipe, the blackcock dance,

there`s empty sky.

Only the sad wind

whistles and sighs and moans.

But one thing soldiers on.

The rhubarb,

Rhubarb fights back.

It wins the annual battle against nettle,

grows tall and strong and rampant red and fat.

Every year I gather it.

Every year McKellars lick their lips

in pink juice from my rhubarb tarts.

Old Archie McKellar`s ghost still barks

"Heathfield rhubarb?

The best rhubarb in Renfrewshire!"

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