You won't remember this
but we played together as boys, you and I
in the woods of Scotland
on the streets of Damascus

Sticks for machine guns
crab apple hand grenades
direct hit, count to ten
then up again

Your mother was kind, I recall
would berate you for lacking my polished manners
while my mother, of course,
would hold you up
as a shining example to me.

And though it has been years
have we ever been apart?
The peace upon you now
has been upon us both all along
as we have traced this warm collision
through all our separate, numbered days

Count to ten, old friend.
Count to ten
and up again.

From horizon to horizon
stretch flowers
waving, trumpetting
refracting brazenly, dazzling

as children, blinded,
fumble through,
coughing on pollen
drowning in nectar
deafened by the buzz of fat, sated insects

brutally and thoughtlessly robbed of the chance
to find the startling beauty
of the solitary blossom
on the wasteland.

So the call goes out:
every priest, imam, rabbi, shaman
gets the same message.
Comes to them like a dream,
but there's no denying it.

"That's it then, folks,"
goes the mesage,
"If you haven't got it by now,
you never will.
We're off -
You're on your own.
B'bye."

And it's followed by this hollow ringing,
the great screaming emptiness
of space.

So of course they get together,
discuss what's to be done.
And the funny thing is how quickly they decide:

"Suppose we'd best
just carry on as usual, eh?"

"Suppose so, aye."

Which is why
you never knew
this had happened.

Midwinter approaches.
You'd barely know it.
Galloway's soft murky skies,
Low clouds born of mudflat and peat,
don't waken the sparkling frost in me

A sudden unexpected pang
for the cut-glass winters of Aberdeen,
skies as clear as no sky at all
and the Dee all poised and crystal
descends upon me in the thick southwest smir

And I long to crunch along the riverbank
with my brother in the frost,
laughter-born clouds
dissipating in the hawthorn branches,
blackbirds startling
in the ice-bound undergrowth -
deep pink sun bursting and bleeding
across the wide blue horizon.

I could return -
follow the waxwings
reclaim my winter home
but I won't -
instead,
I'll cast a glance
of sparkling northern granite
across the fields and mulch,
see if I can clear these skies
and freeze this other Dee

And build myself a fresh white landscape
as crisp
and clear
as memory.

I know my motives
and they're far from pure -
The lengths I will go to
for a pat on the head.

And then there's you -
you, with your pure indifference
and your thousand words for soil

Reminding me
that real art
is its own reward
And that I have created none.

But oh!
I am grateful for the lesson,
for the knowledge of the destination
and the chance
to be on my way.

Thus proving
beyond all hope
that we remember nothing.

The hills held their breath
as October came shouldering over them
suspending September's false summer promises
tugging the sodden sky behind
and charging the channels with boisterous foam

Remember your place, the season proclaimed
I'll lower the sky if I wish
Strip trees to humiliation,
grey their ridiculous colours -
Run
little people,
run
while I crash and scatter my cackling fun!

A day, a night,
then short relief -
the hills exhale
in pluming cumulus
like colossal conifers bound in snow
pointing at the beleaguered blue
and we, below,
emerge, remembering.