After a row Poem by Tom Pickard

A lapwing somersaults spring
flips over winter and back.

After a fast walk up long hills, my limbs
the engine of  thought, where burn
bubbles into beck and clough to gill,
beneath a sandstone cliff  balanced on a bed of shale
and held from hurtling by Scots pine
that brush a scrubby sky with cloud snow scutters,
I found a place to sit
by snapping watta smacking rocks
and wondered — how would it be for you?

And so, alone,
un-alone even, in my anger,
bring you here.