Sheila Templeton found a cheering range of things - flowering hedges, birdsong, even the politeness of walkers keeping their two-metre distances – to make the Covid restrictions of the last two years more human and bearable. The poem comes from her fifth collection, Clyack (Red Squirrel Press, £10), which shows the Glasgow-based poet’s mastery of both English and Scots. Several times winner of the McCash Scots Poetry Competition, run jointly by The Herald and Glasgow University, she writes here in English.

LESLEY DUNCAN

DICHOTOMIES

This heedless drift of pink-gold measuring our days

caught on the hedge like a bride’s pale veil;

no quarantine for blossom or the riot of scarlet

camellias overpowering their own waxed green.

Cars are in lockdown but not birds.

I can hear the clear distinction of blackbird-song

against a scolding robin; and further back

the lullaby of doves, the safety of their roo-coo-roo

from summer evenings so long ago.

Now solitary walks on broad pavements

under arching beech trees, green caves

where the sight of an oncoming stranger startles

that dash for a two-metre distance.

Yet nods and smiles, even thank-you

as we cross wide roads to avoid each other.

And the yearning for touch met only

by the odd stones of a low garden wall

the slow warmth of sun on my skin.