A Poem by Alec Finlay

The birch

‘Loving you so
I was too blind to see you
Letting me go…’
Laura Nyro, ‘It’s Gonna Take a Miracle’

this is love’s last
   task: to shimmy
      the garden railings

clamber down to
   the birch where
      we met and trowel

out a hole for our
   blue-flowered teapot
      which holds my ring

and a card post-
   marked in Dutch:
      love we will always

catch each other
   you’ll be pleased
      to know   two years

on our tree’s
   fulfilling its purpose —
      disseminating light

and protection,
   accepting leaves
      only grow

and fall because
   they can’t know
      how it ends

Alec Finlay is an artist and poet whose work crosses over a range of media and forms. Finlay was awarded a 2020 Cholmondeley award for services to poetry. His next collection, Not Sealions But Lions By The Sea, is forthcoming from Broken Sleep. Finlay established morning star publications in 1990. Recent publications include the Scottish Design Award best publication winner a far-off land (morning star, 2018), gathering (Hauser & Wirth, 2018), and I Remember, a book that accompanies Scotland’s Covid Memorial. https://www.alecfinlay.com