Ken Cockburn is a poet and translator based in Edinburgh, who runs Edinburgh Poetry Tours, guided walks in the city’s Old Town. Recent publications include the collection Floating the Woods, and Heroines from Abroad, translations of German poet Christine Marendon.
Photo: Umar Timol
Herons
A bird the colour of cinders seeks sparks. Names are lights glimpsed among trembling shadows. Cranberries in the margins of Cran Loch near Blaeberry Hill distract from the crane the Trainpool Burn names too except the word in both cases probably means heron. While we grant ardea cinerea a hill, a ditch and a forest clearing at Knockiecore, Crandaldyke and Cronkley as well as the midmost of the Three Lochs straightforward Chapelheron is a lamp blazing with the wisdom of St Ciaran.
Ken Cockburn