Earth Lines, published October, 2021 is a so far unique volume of geopoetry and geopoetics, and includes essays as well as poems - one of which is In Conversation with Tinto Hill https://www.edinburghgeolsoc.org/publications/geological-excursion-guides/

In Conversation with Tinto Hill ---on Youtube, with other geopoets

Here is the link to the very long Geopoetry 2020 YouTube recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xzs5YMhJiAk&t=13s where I read my poem In Conversation with Tinto Hill [about I hour, 40 minutes in] and there are numerous gems from a great range of folk before and after that

https://www.edinburghgeolsoc.org/publications/geological-excursion-guides/ Earth Lines has been published, October 2021, and is a fine collection of both geopoetry and geopoetics

Loch Ness Monster [Edwin Morgan] - read by me in Dunedin

Song of the Loch Ness monster - YouTube

                The Gift

He came in by chance

but how do I know that?

After all, I carry on not taking

the road not taken,

whereas when he puts one foot

glidingly after the other

then sits on haunches,

stares with silent seduction,

walks till he meets the rug,

snouts the tassle into a bundle,

then lies with chin resting

in that Zen pose,

who is to say how he chose.

Now he is always there.

Never fretful, often hungry,

lavish in comfort,

mean in moving,

an expert in nudging

and wordless communicator

who lives

in the realm of the senses.

We are the ones who feed and upkeep

yet he gives the most

and is mostly asleep.

GP 28/05/20

http://sceptical.scot/2020/03/address-to-a-coronavirus/

Address to a Covid - published in Sceptical Scot,  April 2020

A plea for troubled times

New River in the City

By the reservoir there is a four and a half minute stretch of time

when no trains go past.

Not that the cormorant atop his post minds the trains.

But the heron seems to know, as he stalks on to a tuft

peering at the water.

Is it my imagination or do the terns pirouette much higher now?

Cygnets in unlikely repose

and parents a distance away still finely attuned.

Over by the empty pond nothing seems to happen.

There’s a crane hanging loose -

one of the metal variety.

I’m sure I hear a nuthatch, or maybe two,

but it’s more of a song than a call.

For now no one is taking fright

and a grebe dives down

for almost a minute out of sight.

Behind me a whole parliament of crows

has not one speaker as they trace the grass,

with waddles and hops.

A woman comes by with a pug off the lead,

nose to the ground but with haltering stride -

seen better days, now just gets by.

Some branches of gorse are flowering.

When are they not?

Any time of year it seems.

Gorse does not wait.

I move my arm and the heron elongates his neck,

looks straight this way,

stark, still. He tolerates me.

Nothing continues to happen.

Riff with Tambourine

Inspired doctorates by the score,

annoyed purists of folklore,

sang lyrics through his nose,

decried the powerful who pose,

knew how to make a band

in a manner far from planned.

You might say he strode a world stage

on behalf of youthful rage,

ducked a Readers Digest,

was the star of many a rockfest,

took holding power to task

in a way straight guys couldn’t ask,

and the academics how they swooned

as their shibboleths he lampooned.

Many years later at The Fleadh

my son was there with his old dad.

‘He can’t even sing’, he said.

‘Plays a good mouth organ’, I replied.

‘One of these days you’ll appreciate the man –

it takes a long time to become a real fan.

It did for me’.

For I was so much older then,

I’m younger than that now’.