The city's hold on me had already started to weaken when my son was a baby, and I spent most of my days pushing him round the parks of Glasgow. One particular autumn, the changing colours along Kelvin Way seemed more striking than usual, and I was so bewitched by them that I took them home with me and put them into my first poem.
Topping the bill this month are the October skies and Carey Lunan's flute. Carey sings and plays with one of my favourite groups, Firefly Fortyfive, who, in their own words, play "traditiona
Lochend Woods in Dunbar take the place of Kelvingrove in this very short film, and eagle-eyed viewers will spot that the cat with the walk-on, walk-off part is not my own dear Stampy John.
Text below, as before...
Freefalling
The goldspun brighter autumn days
Are grabbing all the limelight
Their sequinned hoofers
Falling in the sunshine spotlight
But the warmest corner of this heart
Is reserved for those deaf grey, dead grey days
When the lead in the sky smokes into your ears
Before the first frost starts pinpricking at your nose
Then a single flash of orange
Burns among the flatter browns
As though someone lit a lamp late
Within a dark still crackling afternoon room.
