Peat Smoke

Resin

root

     heather weed
      breathe deep
         clods of
    thickened-time.

The slate sea sparks as
silent cows stalk the hill crest
their tails flicking midges
—little Shits. 

Held in peat smoke 
that curls towards our secret nook
eddying whisky
while Corks keeps warm. 

Inside potatoes roast
and pudding-batter’s whipped
square-sausage-in-the-hole
ad-hoc but
these days are blessed. 

His first job was on the railways.
South-East London
“Health and safety was hilarious” – he said – 
tales of men
fried on the third rail.

A cow snorts
and the grass is tickled
geese wail in the distance.
their stories are funnier than ours.

re

root

sin 

       heat

her                               we 

  ed

breath                                           e

                deep


    licks of
                     honey
    earth          sweet
    bracken    fume.

He only worked there for four days
a deadly teenage summer job. 
Afterwards he delivered frozen food-
for a while- 

“Which did you enjoy the most?” -I asked–
“Those intangible jobs
in the offices?
Or the solid past-
            working land?”

                                                      o
            Re

Ro
            t

A tractor fires up 
A crow is lost 
                                           sea
            at 
He
            ed

            Breath

Clod.

He’s forgotten to stoke the fire. 

And with a draught of Old Poulteney,
I head in 
Leaving nothing of him
—behind.

A Good Year for the Grass

It’s a good year for the grass, they say,
the best of my three summers,
and thriving in its neglect,
the back-field blocks the view.

Taking to the shears, I am
shedding years of quiet successes,
burning traps among the thistle,
bending double, all erector spinae,
stems snapping, wishing for a scythe.

Across the Pentland Firth,
the sky unloads upon saltwater,
sweat pooling in the pit of my back,
as hints of meadowsweet and dog-violet
lace the nettles, seeking
purpose in the mindlessness.

Over tea, a tick
climbs into the bed of my left elbow.
An ice cube and some rubbing alcohol
give him one last wild night
before the nurse tweezes him out.

But I have now disturbed the nest,
and, unrelenting,
spend my small-time skirting lymes,
reclaiming whole square-inches of lost land,
wrestling my rented flag from
a colony of snails.

The Oyster Catcher and the Dandelion

An oyster catcher and a dandelion
each cradling the other, among
the gravestones of the commonwealth.

No peeping now, nor cusping of the winds,
just patient-waiting for decay
to rob you of your inky plume,

or for the breath of Hoy to come
and sweep the downy-pillow from beneath
your newly-hallowed skull.

Bury your bright beak into the grass,
salt bird, one final twist to taste
the nectar of an Orphir spring.

Bound together, you and he,
An echo from a time
when bluebells danced around the Bu.

Nursed now by the sweet subarctic rains
the dandelion bares its teeth
and ripens as your hollow bones corrode

Aging now together,
among the tilting monuments,
the dandelion waits

for the winds of Hoy to come again,
so you and he may fly,
at last, together.