World Poetry Day

To Edinburgh

Stone above storms, you rear upon the ridge:
we live on your back, its crag-and-tail,
spires and tenements stacked on your spine,
the castle and the palace linked by one rope.
A spatchcock town, the ribcage split open
like a skellie, a kipper, a guttit haddie.
We wander through your windy mazes,
all our voices are flags on the high street.
From the sky’s edge to the grey firth
we are the city, you are within us.
Each crooked close and wynd is a busy cut
on the crowded mile that takes us home
in eden Edinburgh, centred on the rock,
our city with your seven hills and heavens.

By Valerie Gillies

Today we marked World Poetry Day with our own trip To Edinburgh centre.
We walked, almost alone, in the spring sunshine as the pandemic restrictions continue to maintain their eerie grip on the Scottish capital. Later we sat in our garden and enjoyed the early spring warmth.