Memoirs of the Sage of Rogart


The Gulf Stream brings warm rain and the seeds of palm trees;
Old Tom Morris's Tain is arrayed on the resonant shore.
Miller arrives with a crunch of gravel, fills the doorway.
Glenmorangie, late lantern-light, and treasure,
Sketched ammonites, Victorian geology.

Moment of ritual stillness; a splash of seal or dolphin.
The hickory whoosh.  Stevenson's stylish Forgan woods -
We're stride for stride - rattle in handsome withered leather. 
On the dunes, in slanting rain, we shelter in a doorless shed,
And listen to the weather; now hailstones pound it. 

Turn inward, homeward.  Circling ghosts and gulls;
Remote high cries in the gale on linksland: 'Found it!'