There was once a camp

for Napoleonic

prisoners of war and so

I've been walking along

imagining writing to one:

Mon cher, ça va? Butlet's

not talk about the war—

You have tasted,

you must have,

this water—so sweet,

so smooth, tempered

by long journey from the hills,

moss-filtered. It seems

to remember its time

as snow. The man

in the wine shop

told me how perfect it was

for paper-making, being so soft.

Yes, for many years

they prospered

on paper, in Loanhead

and in Penicuik.

What tense to use

when writing of the future past?

‘This

is the loveliest of theriver's

spots.’ Maidenhall Castle,

no castle left.

Where the river most

awkwardly meanders

in to virtual islets

that just demand

to be picnicked,

or settled, or paddled in.

I love the woods,

but love them most

when some manmade

but abandoned thing

is near… I find it best

not to press this sense.

A little downstream

is a lovely spot

(I recommend a trip if you can get out)

where the cliffs shade

the sloping shore

of the opposite bank.

I sat below a tree

whose whole trunk

stretched out across the water

as though it were a limb

slung, or reaching out

to touch… something.

Leant against the base

I watched a bird,

a little treecreeper,

peck and pick

the moss away

from the bark. And with

my right eye I could also

see—beyond the farbank's

straight and upright trees—

a buzzard, high up,

describing generous circles,

slowly. And I was straining

to keep both in sight;

the distant, seeming casual

flight, the close and urgent

fretting. It was a thing

I had to try to do,

like an exercise.