Poems: 'Opal' and 'Mrs Maclean', published in New Writing Scotland 41
Opal
(twenty-four Years)
Luing cattle follow you, bellowing their brindles and sheer reds up a hillside. The bull heaves: flanks measuring the gravity of each step. Muzzles run and cows call throat-water sounds. Hooves sink and bones lever this whole of hide and milk and muscle. Calves gather, surge forwards light in their eyes and feet. In a lull things happen: the bull raises his head and lets pheromones pour across his gums; calves throw their weight at udders, come up white-mouthed, frothing. The air is raucous with trodden bog myrtle, fresh cow shit, sunshine. Clegs bite, I swat my skin, breathe it all in. I remember, remember, before I forget –
that way you look back at your cows
how your t-shirt pins your clavicles
makes me want to start all over
Mrs Maclean
Her memory is mostly updraft, embering
eighty-three years of nature’s gleanings,
such as knowing-fine that often-as-not
October’s nettles are by far the fiercest
but last night a toad circled the house,
he poisoned her sense of home
and today she misplaced a whole turnip,
has looked in all the obvious old places
is still looking now by brittle moonlight
keeping a beady eye out for drag-marks
and toe-dabs of a predating toad,
the coppered stare and deft tongue.
Her memory is mostly updraft, embering.