The Wind and the Moon

It's a few years now since I wrote my poem 'The Wind and the Moon'. I had been working all day in a primary school here in Perthshire at the heart of Scotland. It was a quintessential autumn day: the wind was scurrying about the country classrooms and the children were as high as kites. On the way back to Dunkeld and my house beside the Cathedral, I asked the head teacher what made her pupils wildest. Without a moment's hesitation she said: 'The wind and the moon'. Later that day I scribbled the first draft of a poem about my own memories of autumn and hunting for horse chestnuts. And in the end it simply had to have the title 'The Wind and the Moon'.
The poem's to be found in my collection of selected work 'Second Nature' on Kindle; it's also in my volume of collected poems 'Island' from Amazon.

The wind woke me, the loud howl of it
Boomed round the house and I felt at sea;
I fastened my eyes and was out in a ship,
Ten miles of Atlantic. I went to the window,
Watched the whole round of the moon
Ploughing through clouds, a coin
Of silver and gold.

All night I was blown between dreams,
Never slept deep, was thinking
Of the trees crashing and rising with wind,
Of the chestnut rain that would fall
By the morning.

At dawn I woke up, went out
Into the bright blue whirl of the wind,
Rode the wild horse of it upwards
Into the wood and beyond,
To the hill with the chestnut trees,
The leaves dancing at my feet,
Russet and gold.

I ran and ran till my chest
Hurt with my heart. Under the hands of the chestnuts
That waved and swung in the air,
Saddles of leather, polished and shining,
Broken from the beds of their shells -
A whole hoard.

I went home in a gust of light
My pockets and hands
Knobbled with conkers.