THIS little poem by Angus Calder assumes the little white rose of Scotland, which smells sweet and breaks the heart, rather than florists' larger, gaudier version.

It is included in Things Not Seen, an Anthology of Contemporary Scottish Mountain Poetry, edited by Stuart B Campbell (Aberdeenshire Council, £5.95, 1999).

COLD ROSES

Somewhere, looking for the sun

in a cold Scottish summer

we scramble up to a place where snow still lies

and there can be an imagination of roses

spiny as rockteeth

and of light which toughs it out and refuses to die.

Maybe there's reasoning, reasoning which endorses

an epigraph for everything we've done

in not-bad faith,

us stumbling up towards cold white roses

and the shivering glimmer

of satisfaction: wearily, some prize we've won.