(g17)

on the Rannoch road
though we drive the car up close
the owl does not move

© Gerald England

Composed: Gee Cross, 7th October 1992

Publications

1993 Mirrors (USA)
1995 Northwords (UK)
1998 LIMBO TIME (Hyde, New Hope International)
1999 NASA (USA)
2000 MIR (USA)

Bennachie

BENNACHIE

There is a car-park
at the back of Bennachie
and a log-cabin loo in preservative green.
Forestry Commission firs populate the slopes -
these trees the new colonisers
of ground where men eked a bare living
before the lairds divided the land.

The cone of the Mither Tap
oversees all Buchan and Strathbogie,
this Iron Age fort now tumble-down scree
- granite lintels weather slowly.

Twenty-nine bullocks are daily led
to pasture under the mountain's side -
the thirtieth loner, sufferer of sunburn,
is left companion to the tractor.

A road leads by "My Lord's Throat"
where the larynxed Don is littered
by stone teeth that seem to be
as old as Bennachie itself.

© Gerald England

Composed: Monymusk, 8th August 1989

Publications

1990 Kangaroos & Beans (USA)
1992 STEALING KISSES (Hyde, New Hope International)
1995 Northwords (UK)
1998 Perihelion (Internet)
1998 The Endless Mountains Review (USA)

Dinner at Elshieshields

DINNER AT ELSHIESHIELDS

The hitchhiker had brought a black tie
Jeans, sweater and a haversack he thought
might not be right for dinner with a Scottish laird
The gaunt aristocratic lowlander up his purple rhododendron drive
was a daunting smoking-jacketed prospect for the invited youth
We had no fears for him
seeing the sheared sheep at Kirkmichael
as white as whitsun goats and large as mules,
or the playful rabbits of Ae, darting into Nithsdale
with fat black wood-pigeons flying in front of us
Our breakfast came with the morning sun

© Gerald England

Composed: Closeburn, 24th June 1976

Publications

1977 Counterpoint (UK)
1980 THE RAINBOW AND OTHER POEMS (Heckmondwyke, Fighting Cock Press)
1983 Green's Magazine (Canada)
1995 Northwords (UK)