AN atmospheric word-painting, both rooted in observation and fanciful, from Amy Anderson's 2013 pamphlet, Night's Fresh Velvet (Calder Wood Press, £4.50).

BETWEEN SEASONS

Everything waits as the hours

accumulate.

The old birches have

grown

a fur of blue lichen, so cold

the frosts have been

but there are first signs

of new mosses mapping

themselves to rocks

and Kippford Wood

wears birdsong

in its purple hair like flowers.

Every thing waits, bending,

lengthening.