A Scotland

When it rains and the water
Splashes back up at you, and it's
Warm like a shower and it doesn't
Stop,
I think of the cold, and country homes
Where the smoke rises into the chilly air.
Here, where the babble of voices
Shrieks at your soul and the bubbles
Of cool form glistening havens in the heat.
The field outside is turfed and its posts
Seem like reminders of usual school Septembers
With their rigid posts and tight white lines.
But the ayi on the bike shouts louder
And school's term buses smoke through the gates.
Where once halls listened as they had
For a hundred years, sounds like chronicles,
Here the walls are plastered and straight.
The paint perfect white and the floors a glossy
Mirror.  Perfect imperfection.
I killed a cockroach, watched a gecko drown
And spray at the ants in the morning.
The smiling lady breezes in and can't understand me.
But I could never stay where the land will
Turn white and cold and where the bustle of time
Seems still and the tide turns slower than
Empires into the future.
I can still feel the clean air and know
What will come but change my view to
The East and all its mad chances.

I Saw Them Coming

The new spring;
Rain fresh like spray on the ground,
I heard the oyster catcher call all night
Their hooting and their wailing.
The swallows left splashes
Like dropped paint in the cloister;
Hung their houses from roof tops
- globe-like miracles -
The night would not come,
And the distant whirr of cutting grass,
Weeding out the beds,
The dog smelling through
The garden gate.