Summer

                       hair knotted with brine

 

                                          sharpness of salt

                                                        soft touch of a breeze

                                                                           seaweed scents

                                        hot gritty sand on bare feet

                                                                cool water around ankles

 

                                                            hauling

                                                                         as tide pulls    

                                                         tugs

                                                                        draws you

                                         seagulls call and shout

                                                                  horizons are everywhere

                  a world tensed tight

                                                       with struggles

                                                                                         unravels

                                    disentangles

                                                                       becomes free

                                               and you know how it feels

                                to see forever

                                                                         as far as love

Postcard to my father

On Father's Day. This prose poem is for my Dad. (Walter Biggs, 27/7/1912 - 24/6/1978).

Postcard to my father

I have wanted to go back to that place for so long, to breathe the same air, to be where you were when that final event happened, by the loch those many years ago. Could you see the view as you left us? Was the surface water rippled in the breeze, or was it blue, flat and clear? Could you see the pebbles underneath, smooth and round? How green were the trees in that midsummer midday? Did you smell the warm grass, taste the minerals of earth, hear all the birds singing? Did the golden eagle soar above the white clouds?

Did it fly away towards the distant Cairngorms?

Did you think of me? Did you wish I was there?