2 Poems by Beth McDonough

To the Signal Tower, Arbroath

Newly strange as waves of watered silk,
sunset starts to mark out clouds.
A score and a half of herons on my left
cemeteries one field. Gracile statues.

Between there and marram-bordered water,
scabious plumps blue cushioned business
among sea campion husks. In poppied oddness,
bird monuments black-eye stirks and ragwort.

But why? The sky's material keeps its hush.
I cycle on. My gentler pedal back,
pulled by precious light, clocks cobwebbed moths.
Gulls stand, where expected, on seaward docks.

That chosen field now fences only beasts,
and tattered seed-breezed plants. No signs.
Then sandy soils tremble, come alive, white-flash
rabbits' lost Morse code in one hundred scuts.

Hurt Dawning

Now, let us prepare to mourn,
lost in the gaze into mud.
In other years, this curve
has been puddles, tiny ponds,
nurseries of spawn.

Already, we must expect
missing lochans of swims.
But first know this loss of their birthing pool,
where water should punctuate
tadpole arabesques.

In mist, we think ourselves
further from angry eyes
lit by hot, growling cars. But really
all these shrivelled places are close,
more than we want to think.

We bow to all the frogs who are not,
the fondness we will not meet in May.

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Beth McDonough's work connects strongly with place, particularly to the Tay, where she swims year round, foraging nearby. Her poetry is published in 'Gutter', 'Stand', 'Magm'a and elsewhere. She reviews at DURA. 'Handfast' (with Ruth Aylett) investigates experiences of autism and dementia in verse. Her first solo pamphlet, 'Lamping for pickled fish', was published in September 2019 by 4Word Books.