Three Poems

IN THE FLOW COUNTRY

I'm spending a fortnight alone in the flow country,
    completing a study of the black-throated diver.
I've pitched my little tent among fields of silver.

Frequently our last quarrel comes back to me,
    a ghostly battle misting the landscape.
Her language rose alarmingly against my silence.

By voodoo I clamped her face and forced it out of true -
    I've tried, but failed, to disinvent this image.
There's no telephone for twenty miles or more,
     so I'll write in my notebook:
              'Dear Jean,
Great luck. I spotted divers on my first day on the
    loch
Henson told us about. There was the hide by the
    shore
just as he'd said, and guess what? He'd left
one of his old tobacco tins, remember that smell?
...