IN this sample from his wide-ranging new collection, John Glenday recalls how the steam engines of old could spark off rosebay willowherb, that coloniser of railway banks and abandoned areas. (Extracted from The Golden Mean, published by Picador at £9.99. Copyright © John Glenday, 2015.)

FIREWEED

I’m old enough to remember how dangerous

they were, those steam trains butting the weather

south of Forfar, heading for the big smoke.

They would seed sparks among the dropped coals littering

the ballast by the Seven Arches, sweetening the shale for weeds.

Even as we speak the willowherb is hitching upwind

through the decades; it feeds on old burnings,

hungry for nitrogen. At Doig’s Farm, their purple heads

crowd above watermint and nettle, or lean out over

the slackwater pools to marvel at themselves – tall, aristocratic,

raised out of last year’s waste, abandonment and fire.