July 2024

Alexander has written a new poem about one of his favourite places to walk in Edinburgh, Craiglockhart Hill. The Friends of East Craiglockhart Hill have displayed the poem on their ‘Poets Post’ inside the Craiglockhart Nature Reserve.

Craiglockhart Hill in 2024

Summer again on Craiglockhart Hill:
The tumbling topography is clothed once more
In the confident foliage of the season,
And the light across the Forth
Is an attenuated blue.

Gorse and the various hillside shrubs
Are populated now with birds, clouds
Mass and disperse, walkers wander,
Dogs lead their doggy lives
On path and grass.

This year our troubled world has entertained
Conflict after conflict, will we never learn
That we solve nothing through war?
How the young soldiers reproach us,
Ask us why.

We walk together, I take your hand
And say: I wish the peace we find right here
In this place, on this beloved hill,
Could be shared with our brothers and sisters
Altogether elsewhere.

____________________________

You can read more of Alexander’s poetry in his collections In A Time of Distance.