Poems

LOOKING FOR SCOTLAND

1
Because of Culloden and Clearances

Because of the gap between thought and blood
between definition and silence

Because of supermarkets and central heating

Because of the flight from love
this is, as the blurb says,
the last great wilderness area in Europe . . .

I arrive behind COME BACK J.R.
and Glenfinnan stickers,
Tourist Board and N.T.S. images
filling the windscreen
displacing the eyes

I snoop for a while with the cruising saloons
of the property cult -
French, Germans, English, prospecting the lochsides
...