A Place Apart
for the Quiet Room, Marie Curie Hospice, Fairmilehead

Here is a quiet room where you can stay
And you do not need to say

Anything. Three windows look out east
Toward a distant coast that calls the geese.

One window holds the southern hills,
Moorfoots and Pentlands to wander at will.

This shelter-belt of trees is closer in
Where branches bend in every wind,

Birds can perch or take their flight,
And leaves can turn to face the light.

The high stars rise, wheeling by again
Above the deep stillness of the hill and glen

And only a moment ago a Scottish king
Came this way to the Balm Well's healing spring.


THE SPRING TELLER (Luath Press, Ltd, 2009)