Two little nature poems, by Fife-based Herald reader Gordon Jarvie, offer a gentle positivity of mood.
MAIDEN FLIGHT
Ready or not it falls from a busy nest
onto soft grass below, standing to survey
the garden from this brand-new angle.
~
Father flies straight past, yellow beak
crammed with squirming caterpillars destined
(it appears) for a luckier nest-based sibling.
~
Bereft, the fledgling on the grass looks around.
From the back door, Brodie the spaniel appears
and makes straight for the wee brown bird.
~
Friend or foe? Chick doesn’t know.
The challenge of flight seems the safer option.
A squawking whirr of wings bashes the garden fence
and hooks itself on – somehow, anyhow.
~
Next time will be less bumpy. Easier.
CAIRNGORM SEEDLING
Once upon an autumn day, they were
three tiny seedlings, carried down the track
from Whitehaugh – Glen Clova Forest way.
Thinking ahead about their welfare
I shouldered a wee poly bag of gritty soil.
~
Just as well. It was to be the last hill walk,
followed by a final homeward drive.
The year? 2008, an annus horribilis,
eyesight, hindsight, balance sore impeded.
But those three seedlings were well seeded . . .
~
A simple pleasure now is noting sheer survival
nine winters since that long-remembered day.
Those ‘bonsai’ plants of pine, larch, yew, all
flourish still: albeit still too small to emit much smell
of damp, snug, montane grit in mossy pots of clay.
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