POEM OF THE DAY

Lang Rig. This winter tableau, and the flutter of summer wings below it, both come from Kate Murray’s poetry pamphlet, From the

SEEN FROM THE

LANG RIG

February sun.

Inchcolm becalmed on a jade plateau; sugar-cube Bass Rock perched on a length of bridesmaid-blue satin ribbon.

Due North by Burntisland a reach of the Forth alchemised to a golden crocodile suns itself out of inertia, glides westwards through Mortimer’s Deep.

POLYOMMATUS ICARUS

– AND THEY

CALL IT COMMON BLUE!

I follow where it leads in fly-dance-flutter; orange-eyeletted, brushed with pearl from the gates of Shangri-la.

It settles. Opens Cerulean wings fibrillating my heart strings, bringing me down

to lie long gazing high, until I find where the butterfly shape was jigsawed from the blue, blue sky.