Status Updates From A Year of Scottish Poems

aug 23 - “I'll carry ma lantern, and daur defend ye agin ony foe; and whilst there is breath in me, I'll blaw it intae ye.”

aug 22 - “They hae sought it up, they hae sought it doon, They hae sought it maist severely, Till they fand it on the fair plum-tree That shines on the bowling-green o Airlie.”

aug 21 - “like every new experience because it was new to you”

aug 20 - “My heart's in the Highlands, my heart is not here;
My heart's in the Highlands, a-chasing the deer;”

aug 19 - “It whole or almost whole, Acceptance and gratitude
Like travellers return
And stand where first they stood.”

aug 18 - “An island on the rim of the world in that space between slate, sea and sky where air and ocean currents are plays of wild energy and the light changes everything.”

aug 17 - “Oh! ye soldiers who fall in defence of your flag, What are you to the hero who brings down the stag?”

aug 16 - “"Twas sweet, ay, sweet from many things; But (sweeter than all with scent Of long past years and laughter and tears
It to me was redolent.”

aug 15 - “Spangled with glitter”

aug 14 - “My heart soars like the birds in your bright blue skies.
My love glows like the sunrise over the lost city.”

aug 13 - “Let me know when it lands or crashes into your hands.”

aug 12 - “potato salad with spring onion big chunks of apple”

aug 11 - “A single thought which benefits and harms me Bitter and sweet alternate endlessly in my heart.
Between hope and fear this thought weighs down on me
So much that peace and rest flee from me.”

aug 10 - “Now all whom varied toil and care From home and love divide, In the calm sunset may repair Each to the loved one's side.”

aug 9 - “For the sword outwears its sheath, And the soul wears out the breast, And the heart must pause to breathe, And love itself have rest.”

aug 8 - “The lion an the unicorn Fechtin for the croon;
Up jumped the wee dog, An knocked them baith doon.”

aug 7 - “2 a.m. - summer's midnight - neither of us can sleep so we go for a night drive.”

aug 6- “i dreamt i was the seafloor and you were the weight of ocean pressing down on me, your quiet words of love in my ears now and again, golden, elegant and strange, like seahorses, like grace-notes, tiny floating saxophones”

aug 5 - “Follow the rainfall – see where it leads”

aug 4 - “Unachievable hopes and unassuageable sorrows that lie like apples where they fall.”

aug 3 - “All labourers drawes hame at even, And can till uther say,
Thankes to the gracious God of heaven, Quhilk send this summer day.”

aug 2 - “The sky was depthless; all was silence.
And I was there
moving slowly through this perfect blue wedge,
bearing terror in one hand, guilt in the other, leaving the briefest wake to mark my shame.”

aug 1 - “But by the moon and stars so bright, That shone that night so clearly!
She ay shall bless that happy night, Amang the rigs o' barley.”

jul 31 - “I thought I was hurt in my pride only, forgetting that,
when you plunge your hand in freezing water, you feel
a bangle of ice round your wrist before the whole hand goes numb.”

jul 30 - “We bent whole treetops
squeezing through and they rained down twigs, broken bits of foliage, old blossom on the roof, chucked hard wee balls of unripe fruit, drumming us out of the country.”

jul 29 - “Like the dew on the mountain, Like the foam on the river, Like the bubble on the fountain, Thou art gone, and for ever!”