Even big gardens start
as small fragilities.
Ready them, Mandy wrote,
for both wrath and wonder.
Father would have agreed.
He knew the wrath of gales
barging from the north-west
down narrow Strath Ullie,
barging from the east in
from the wide Moray Firth.
He knew what luck and care
floppy seedlings needed.
He felt wonder, kept it
almost out of our sight.
It was a lit candle
unperturbed by the dark.
Ground-Level
In my twenties I could hear the sea
all night,
wonder how far the waves had carried
their weight.
I stared at The Cloud of Unknowing,
wondered
how long it might take to enter it
full of
«nothing» too empty even to weigh,
then leave
full of »nothing» whose weight was beyond
measure.
In my eighties I´m at ground-level
again
still with my first wonderings, watching
nothing
waver out of a seed and become
something
defying gravity, near-weightless
as yet
whether pale celandine or vast oak.
Robin Fulton Macpherson
Robin Fulton Macpherson has recent poetry collections published by Marick Press (Michigan) and Shearsman Books (UK). Recent translations of Swedish poets (Tomas Transtrómer, Harry Martinson, Kjell Espmark) are published by Marick Press, Bloodaxe and Shearsman.