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WALKING THE TOWPATH

Through the summer of 2006 Robert Davidson conducted a lengthy series of interviews with Remzije Sherifi and, together, with a number of Asylum Seekers and activists. Located in Glasgow in a flat temporarily vacated by Kirstie Gordon he walked for fifty minutes to interview each day along the Forth and Clyde Canal and fifty minutes back. These are the poems that resulted.

* * * * *

This is the life.
Writing all morning.
Walking and talking
through the afternoon.
At night – fine malt whiskies!
This is the life.

Daisies.
Buttercups.
Foxglove.
All with their cups closing.

The sun going down
behind the Campsies.

* * * *

Late at night, a fox
slinks out of the trees
while I sit thinking.
Ted Hughes!

Walking the towpath today.
Wild flowers along the bank.
Two very curious swans.
Three ducklings chasing their Mum.

Walking the towpath yesterday.
A gang of savage children.
Three buckfast parties.
Propositioned by a hoor.

* * * *

‘I’m just feeding the ducks here, pal.
Cheapest bread on the shelf.
You want to feel the stretch in it.
There’s people buy this stuff
to feed their families.’

Snaggled among the reeds.
Empty glass bottles.
Empty plastic bottles.
Empty cardboard cartons.
Water lilies in full bloom.

* * * *

Cloud cover over Glasgow thins and breaks.
A dim white gleam; the moon is through there.

It shines white over City roofs.
It shines white over Highland moors.

This world . . .
Is there some other world?

There’s no escape from all this thinking.
Ideas, words, have me by the brain stem.
They won’t let go.

My blank spaces are all being filled in.
Sometimes I wish I could turn into water
and just trickle away.

* * * *

After four days of visitors
I’m on my own again.

Back to it now, daily
walking the towpath.

At one end of it, talk.
At the other end, write.

Work with an end in sight.
Work that’s worth doing.

Not so much as a breeze today.
So hot the reeds are lying down.

The canal’s invisible current
has aligned them lengthwise.

* * * * *

To honour his teacher, Kokusen
the poet Ryokan poured

a dipper of pure water
over his tombstone.

That’ll do for me except
it cost him a lot of tears.

I won’t have a grave
far less a tombstone.

Any stone will do for me.
No need to leave the path.

Pendant birches hang over their reflections.
A collared dove breaks into the light
and circles above itself.

That’s the way, bird! A long silence
broken by a clattering fuss
a graceful arc and silent return
into the trees.