Poems of the month

when the poem’s out a sense in the body
like the energy left in a twig
after a bird has flown

across the inlet night falls
off the edge of a heron’s shout

I have listened to the stories
told by fox and
stream and star.
And they all say –
You are
who you are,
but not who you think
you are.

Malcolm Ritchie (1940 -)
taken from small lines on the great earth (Longhouse:2014) and Village Japan (Charles E. Tuttle:1999)

A few of my favourites from Lochranza’s finest. You can find more of Malcolm’s work here: https://www.artsjournal.com/herman/2020/01/a-poem-and-its-genesis-malcolm-ritchies-writing-it.html

IM