Dandelions are given their fair share of glory in Andrew Young’s orchard, even if masquerading as oranges! The Elgin-born cleric-poet, who started his professional life as a Presbyterian minister and ended it as a Church of England canon, writes with originality and sometimes quirky wit about all aspects of nature, interspersed with memories of mountain-climbing in Scotland. He was awarded the Queen’s Gold Medal for Poetry in 1952 and his Selected Poems were published by Carcanet in 1998.

LESLEY DUNCAN

SPRING FLOWERS

Now we enjoy the rain,

When at each neighbour’s door we hear

‘How big primroses are this year’ –

Tale we may live to hear again –

And dandelions flood

The orchards as though

apple-trees

Dropped on the grass ripe oranges,

Boughs still in pink impatient bud,

When too we cannot choose,

But one foot and the other set

In celandine and violet,

Walking in gold and purple shoes,

Rain that through winter weeks

Splashed on our face and window pane,

And rising in these flowers again

Brightens their eyes and fats their cheeks.

CHILDREN GATHERING VIOLETS

Children, small Herods, slay these Innocents

With blue untidy faces and sweet scents;

But violets gone or even autumn here

Spring in the children lasts through all the year.