Rebecca Pine’s poetry diary is welcome annually. The Argyll-based poet is very alert to the natural environment around her. Below is her poem for January. And a complementary theme is struck by ‘A Green Mist’ from Sir Kenneth Calman’s recent collection, Afterthoughts (Kennedy and Boyd).
JANUARY LIGHT
The mountains are primeval in
the morning sun
Each scratch a scar
of ancient ice, like claw marks of
some larger animal than fossils tell.
~
Retreating folds of hills
above the icy sparkle of the loch
form blocks of misty colour, each
that little lighter than the next,
and fading to infinity.
~
Each stand of trees a camouflage
of green, edged with the morning
stubble of an ill-spent night,
or filigree of fern-like twigs
uncombed.
~
A twist of angle to the sun
awakes a brighter green of verge
that validates the route,
and promises, promises – however far –
the birth again of spring.
A GREEN MIST
It was the green mist that struck me
As I looked up the glen
It was low down in the trees
Not up in the hills
Sometimes it was green but became orange or white
As the tiny leaves burst from the cold hard wood
And spring and regeneration had begun
A few weeks later the mist had become a sea of green
While two cherry trees, in bright pink raiment
Stood out amidst the green
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