Soft eyed seals see us
As we swirl with binoculars
On a circular platform
Looking out to sea.
The Moray Firth chops
Hiding the fins of
Basking sharks from view.
The water is full of potential fins
That trick and taunt us.

When we are stopped for a while,
Potential occurs,
A shift that we both feel.
It is undivorced from our conversation
From the rhythm of the sea
From the times the tide
gravels up higher
Closer to us.
A bird dives, a gillimot you say.

We talk of movement
Then we move, slowly.
Birds fly past.
We may have called them
They may have called us.
We have to 'not know'
In this time of naming birds.

I go to your garden to plant trees
A nice day sings itself into being.
As we welly-up
A woodpecker arrives
On wavey flight.
Gets busy on a rowan branch
Its smart black, red and white message
Stops us
Like a catchy short story.
Holds us softly
In a glue of wonder.

Pines reach like a scale of 1 to 10
Pyramids of God and science.
I ride a train tracking a coastline of
Secrets and seals.
Where golden ferns whisper paths
Through the land.

Here in your house
The sound of my blood in veins
Bounces off the walls at night
We are so deep in a silent vale.

I am sergeant to your boredom and you to mine
We occupy and inhabit.
Kept like the spices in your cupboard
A little too long past their best.

It was 5 a.m.
Owls hooted,
Holding Parliament,
Honey hooting the night Goodbye.

You talk of pain.
I have none.
She hoots, holding my tongue gently,
Lest I tred too loudly on your hurting.

I heed her
Bend to a greater *** of gold
Than we both can muster.
Hurt passes.

The trees take in the owls.
Breaths out crows.
The sky like blue cotton
Lays its fabric on the day.

In Marcassie, the grass-fed cows are community owned.
Here, ideas are new or flowering.

When everything locked down, we dug a vegetable bed shaped like a coffin.
Those who saw it asked if your husband was buried underneath the kale and beetroot.

A red-haired woman reads a poem to the cherry tree.

In Marcassie, the Northern lights can sometimes be seen at this time of year.

I scan my phone for love
And to see if I can become more
loveable.
While the washing machine spins into a panic.

I miss and yearn
Long and miss.

Then I change things.
Like I always knew I would.

I take control of my death
Life becomes a painting
Full of beautiful mistakes
Held lovingly against the perfection of nature
Like the sea colour of leek leaves against new soil.
Like a crow playing hawk against a blue sky.

We are out
For a walk.
We cross an old stoney bridge.
Low lying flat stones
Hold its history.
We look at the water,
Talking of fishing rights and such.
There, resting,
Over a foot long,
A Trout!
Brown as the bridge
That saves it from the current.
Hanging in the water.
Resting in liquid silver,
You lullaby us
Our fast streams mastered for now.

I see you on a wall
By a mill pond.
Little Philemon
An unearthly turquoise
Stills us.
Stops and
Holds us.

The maths of the moment,
A trickster tune,
Beguiles us.
A quadrangled pool
You dive 4 times
We are 4.

We leave.
You too, Fisher king.
Some unwordly
Concept passes between us
A square noted scribble.
A mystery message .

A grimy light.
Coal-laden air
A live bird
Brought into darkness.
Unknowng
if the ground will
collapse,
Trusting
Others who's eyes shine
Black and blindly.

To take up some
piece of no value to man.
Ashamed to reach for it
even though it was
Always yours to hold.

On the face of it
When lungs cough up dead
canaries and all we see
Are metal towers.
A glint of dawn
Light catches on the cut
surface of what at you have.
Colours it
Purple, olive and rust
in the morning sun.

And in this shining,
When you
opened your hand and
showed your fellow
miners
and risked
Shaming over and over again.
Someone says
Is beautiful.

The chances
of being born are slim.
Many are lost.
The chances of someone
seeing what
You hold
Are less.
But we
mine for gold
Like troopers.
Until the ground is uncut with trenches.
And we stand on the battlefield
Arm in arm.
Shadows long
In the evening sun.

Your brown feathers are turning white
Waiting for adult wings to carry you off.
The water is clear
As you graze on the river bed
So close you hold us silent.
We listen to your shape
See how you sound
Half fish
Half bird now.
You bend us
Like light refracted
On this ancient modern stream.
Like warp.
We dream into your name
And swan dive with you
In this time.