Easter Sunday
Runners scurry
Across Holyrood Park,
Quick-footed on beetling paths
Threading through gorse and scrub.
Cloud loosens—maybe enough
To spill a little sun on Leith.
Those of us not pillow-talking
Or else taking something
Roam stag-like with our dogs,
The morning’s holy light
Lifting our shrugs.
Soon the unhurried outsiders will arrive—
Daughters and sons of grander tours,
Loose-jawed, doe-eyed,
Escaping the restless churn
Of Prince’s Street.
Never have I seen a greener city,
A city half-dreaming,
In its shaded glades,
Tree-lined highways
And manicured fairways.
Beyond its limits, the Pentlands
And beyond that
England’s cursed plot.
Arthur’s Seat -
A mountain by virtue
Of its sheer insistence,
Born of pyroclastic fury,
A tumble of violent stone
Now fixed, silenced,
Half fortress, half gambol
For sturdy legs
And patient lungs.
Yesterday we climbed it
Amid the tourist throng,
Holidaying in the lives
Of each other.
On the way down
You showed me your stones,
Skipping lightly between them:
I know this rock.
I know this rock.
Anchors from the pandemic days
Days of pandemonium
When I was still married
And you were here,
Pale-eyed and shut-in,
Camping in your living-room,
Going gently mad
On the phone to your mum.
Later, in the restaurant,
You told me the city suits me -
A place I could live in,
Just as I’ve lived in so many others,
Briefly,
Leaving only small embers
To spin in the night air.
All cities are this city—
Places of impermanence,
Quiet lives and quieter loves
Suspended in their amber hum.
Sometimes
I miss my old city
London
And the life I had there.
Not long ago
I walked this same park
With another love
Who became my wife.
We climbed the steep track
By Salisbury Crags
And kissed
In a wind that tore at us
Under a fiercer sun.
And now I think of you,
A tangle in your eiderdown,
Limbs tossed like a marionette,
Dark hair veiling your face
A queen awaiting her capital,
A beauty laid out for a kiss.
I retrace the route you mapped for me,
Back to your door.
It’s all right -
I remember the way.
How things are done.
No need to worry.
Just wake when you hear me,
Let me in,
Let me rejoin you
And the deepening warmth
Of your love.