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.