GEORGE Bruce (1909-2002) reaches back to his childhood in the northern fishing town of Fraserburgh for this atmospheric piece.

He, one may suppose, is the enchanted child. The poem can be found in Today Tomorrow, the fine compendium of his Collected Poems 1933-2000 (Polygon, £14.99 paperback).

GOOD MORNING

Feet squelch on a brown Monday morning

that hasn't had time to put its face on.

Gutters run. A bus washes the corner with mud.

A child, nose flattened against the glass,

sees the world new. In his heaving ship

churned-up slush is a wake of creaming waves.

A woman in a green hat, stuttering on high heels,

is Spring. I am in his looking glass and hear

hooves' thump of lambs' dance on thin turf.

It pushes them up into the blowing sky.

As the boat moves out smooth beyond the cliff head

my long drowned innocence rises and breathes again.

Those aboard have no truck with water,

which has killed their generations, but to hunt fish.

It is nothing but a use that will exercise cruelty

as wanton as malformation. 'Good morning!'

Is this then a lie that the absurd face at the pane

conveys, seeing miracles where there are none,

but that the eyes are wonders.