As the sun sinks over city roofs, And the wind stills, And the evening blackens silvered cardoons. As daisies curl petals into tight heads ready for sleep, And Swifts still duck and dive over lilac and laburnum, Gulping flies, Can you hear the earth breathe, Deep, deep? 2019

Instead of your pills prescribe me a day in the hills, a swim in a loch, a dawn with robin or otter, a dance in the spring rain, for how can we truly know rain until it has soaked under the skin and we have let it in. I need a stomp in puddles, a […]

How many grains of sand on Porty beach? How many waves lick the shore? How many crabs walk the floor between the groynes? How many fleas hop in the weed? How many fish take a plastic feed? How many wet wipes float between here and Dalgetty Bay? How many cotton buds buried in the sand? […]

Lie in the soft sway of a meadow, Bathe in the whisperings of Rye grass and clover, Feel the lacey seed heads skim the skin of your face without a flinch, Play ‘Here’s a tree in summer’ and scatter seed to the warm wind, Know that grass is more than green blades cut to within […]

My father’s thick fingers know Hedging, ploughing, reaping, Fencing, birthing, feeding, Stacking, sowing, weeding, And the soft brush Of grass. Cocksfoot, Meadow foxtail, Timothy, All grown for hay. His steady voice shows me Broad leaves, hairy leaves, Flower and seed; Floating sweet grass, Yorkshire Fog grass, Rough Meadow grass, Smooth Meadow grass, Ryegrass, Brome, and […]

At Elsie’s beach out of reach of email, text and web we are unwound, earth-bound by bracken, clover and daisy, sea-found, salted, rippled and rocked round and round, beside barnacle-browned stone, sun crowned, bedded down on the sweet machair ground of our being

The pear midge overwinters in a silk cocoon in the soil, Lays eggs in the blossom before it opens, And the larvae feast on pear fruitlets, Which turn black and rot and fall to the soil, Where the pear midge overwinters In a silk cocoon. And so on we race, the midge and me, Before […]

Sing 1,2,3, what do you see? I see a wood without a tree, I see plastic filling up the deep blue sea I see a screaming catastrophe Sing 1,2,3, what do you see? I see some apple blossom needing a bee, I see some kids with a hand drawn plea, I see a blood-soaked tragedy […]

Oceana, photo by Juan Cuetos displayed on Portobello Prom as part of Edinburgh Science Festival 23/03/20 Lion of the sea Prowling the deep with brainless grace Metres of mauve and orange ribbons throb and twist – What a dance! In this unlit space You make light, Lion of the dark night