Rebecca Pine’s poetry diary is welcome annually. The Argyll-based poet is very alert to the natural environment around her. Below is her poem for January. And a complementary theme is struck by ‘A Green Mist’  from Sir Kenneth Calman’s recent collection, Afterthoughts (Kennedy and Boyd).

       JANUARY LIGHT

The mountains are primeval in

         the morning sun

       Each scratch a scar

of ancient ice, like claw marks of

some larger animal than fossils tell. 

~

       Retreating folds of hills

  above the icy sparkle of the loch

  form blocks of misty colour, each

    that little lighter than the next,

        and fading to infinity.

~

Each stand of trees a camouflage

of green, edged with the morning

    stubble of an ill-spent night,

   or filigree of fern-like twigs

                uncombed.

~

   A twist of angle to the sun

awakes a brighter green of verge

      that validates the route,

and promises, promises – however far –

     the birth again of spring.

          A GREEN MIST

It was the green mist that struck me

As I looked up the glen

It was low down in the trees

Not up in the hills

Sometimes it was green but became orange or white

As the tiny leaves burst from the cold hard wood

And spring and regeneration had begun

A few weeks later the mist had become a sea of green

While two cherry trees, in bright pink raiment

Stood out amidst the green