Towards Easthaven
and all the way the path bordered in
hawthorn, heavy with clusters of deep-red
fruit and determined holly bushes,
the brittle sunlight pinned to their leaves
and a dog rose still stubbornly in flower
as if summer hadn’t left us far behind
and the late October horizon shivers
like crumpled tinfoil out beyond Tentsmuir
and suddenly a robin in the rowan by the old
folks’ home bursts into unexpected song
and everything, everywhere answers,
though there’s nowhere else in the world
but here – nowhere we need to go,
nowhere else we can choose to live.
To hold in trust this dear and ordinary land,
what might you do? What could you give?
