Table of Contents
In a Time of Distance
A Washing Line Outside a Croft House 3
Taste and Memory 4
In a Time of Distance 7
Journeys
Our Journeys 10
The Train Arriving at Platform Two 13
Adelstrop Revisited 15
The Language of Pilots 17
College of Hypnotherapy, Next Right 20
Quality Provisions for Ever 24
Not Rus in Urbe but Suburbia in Rure 27
A Typology of Angels 29
Household Gods 32
Holy River 34
Mustard Field, Rajasthan 37
Feel Glorious 39
Do Not Lean Again 41
Ne Pas 43
A Scottish Four Seasons
Spring 46
Summer 48
Autumn 50
Winter 51
Interlude: Seven Sonnets
I Sixty Talks to Eighteen 54
II Eighteen Replies to Sixty 55
III Forty Intervenes, Remembers Horace 56
IV Adventure and Uncertainty 57
V It Takes a Village to Raise a Child 58
VI King James VI of Scotland Reflects on the Loss of His Only Friend When Young 59
VII Love Unforgotten 60
Of the Animals
Primate Cousins 62
The Gentleness of Whales 63
Elephants 65
Kangaroos 66
The Dung Beetle 67
Tortoise 68
Cheetah 69
Polar Bear 70
Crocodile 71
Lion 72
Small, Insignificant Antelope 73
Giraffe, Zebra 74
Our World, Their World 75
Of Love & Longing
Love over Scotland 78
On Clouds over Mull: A Love Song 79
Nocturnal Blessing 80
Love Lost 81
On Looking at a Child 83
Of Books & Reading
The Goodness of Books
I The Book Becomes 88
II Moveable Type 89
III What the Book Is 90
IV On the Bedside Table 91
Remembering Muriel Spark 93
Graham Greene 97
A Maker of Beautiful Books 100
Library of Congress 102
Places
Greece
The Oracle at Delphi 106
Goodbye to the Ionian 108
Scotland
St. Kilda 111
Dear One 117
Scotland's Claim 119
Edinburgh 121
A Fragile Beauty 123
The Seven Hills of Edinburgh
The Castle Rock 125
Craiglockhart Hill, a Century Ago 127
Arthur's Seat and Geology 129
Imagined Conversation on Blackford Hill 131
Corstorphine Hill 132
On Calton Hill 134
Braid Hills 136
Unrelated Poems
Northland 138
Wolves 139
The Canadian Museum for Human Rights in Winnipeg 140
From a Mumbai Hotel 141
Fish, and the Thoughts of Fish 144
Saving an Oak Tree 146
Friendship 148
