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Sport 36: Winter 2008

Four Reasons to Come to Scotland

page 169

Four Reasons to Come to Scotland

Arthur's Seat
Because I'm in love
with the idea
of you and me
walking around Cat Nick
over the Hawse and down
the Gutted Haddie:
how we would loll
in a small hollow
amongst gorse and stinging nettle,
with crows breaking their voices
on the rocks above
and you would say
crikey
and I would say
worth it,
don't you think?

airpoints
Because some bleak day in winter
when the sea is iron and the faces of men
and women close over like mussell shells

you can fly to Samoa
for nothing, wear pink lavalavas for a week
each day place fresh
bougainvillea in a small glass
jar in your room.

page 170

old bones
Because you can go home
to a place you never knew.
Drive one afternoon the long road up to Luss
with the loch on the right
the sunlight cutting in
at the particular angle it always has.

There will be
a post office
a coffee shop
a tall white house on the crest of the hill
but no further information.

Go down to the shore.
If the distant static of the long-since dead
is drowned out by the crash of rain on the lake
run back across black soil
that you want to reach down and bury your hands into.

solstice
If you come
we'll go
to a movie
an opera
or (if you're quick)
final match
of the World Cup.
At midnight
walk back
from the pub
or theatre:

astonished at the sky
still fading and fading.