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.
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