Jim Carruth, Glasgow's new poet laureate, comes from a dairy-farming background in Renfrewshire.
His latest collection, Prodigal (Mariscat, £6), is dedicated to his mother Margaret but this poem concerns his father.
OLD COLLIE
While milking together
my father shouts across the parlour
an idea for my next poem
How about a working collie -
one that's on its last legs?
I tell him it has been done before.
Unwilling to chase this sentimental stick,
I leave it well alone,
turn away, but feel it lying there
becoming hair and bone
crouching low, resting its arthritic frame
flecked muzzle flat on its front paws.
Lifting itself slowly to its feet
it sniffs out the few short steps to my father
where we both knew it was bound to go.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article