The North Burn of Quoys

Oozed, lost, gathered, running,

culverted, blocked, swerved, falling,

wooded, bridged, forked, spilling

in one mile from bog to sea;

but perhaps we need

to hunt higher

up the steep gully,

between the singing teeth

of the Hamars

onto the ice-plateau,

and laugh under the dry stars,

the burn-feeding sky.

A hunt with many way-stations:

as where the stormed trunk fell aslant,

yet hordes of branches started up lightwards

from tumbled rowan lost in the burn-groin,

luxuriance lurking amid woodrush,

softness of primrose, curlicues of vetch,

& the reverberant and rugose gliss

of black rocks jetting.

Yet up in the field,

it's but

a ditch

all tramp-

led through,

then

strait-

ened

under

the B-

road.

We'd have to climb

to reach the erratic:

earthfast & massive,

cleft where frost

first burst

a chip from the boulder,

to be rounded then

to a rolling pebble,

then quite soon

to an agile grain

of seabed sand

strummed by storm

& eeled by ebb

in shifting mosaics

of its fellows,

a very wild and

natural history

unlikely to be conceived,

unless we here conceive it:

and keep that odd bit grit

within the skull

to help to grind our tough

and beautiful ideas

on the marvels of microcosmos

(a word with three telling o’s):