Jim Carruth, founder of the Glasgow poetry club, St Mungo's Mirrorball, and past winner of the McCash Scots Poetry Competition, writes these lines to his wife on the eve of their twenty-fifth wedding anniversary.

EARTHSTRUCK

How can I explain

No expert in love's show and tell

my few words, rarely erudite,

are as fleeting as a pipistrelle

that flickers in the evening rain.

I offer the moon to make it right.

Though it seems to wax and wane

to the mere sliver of light

it is forever full and well

a constant that remains

throughout each day and night

dumb entranced by earth's spell.