This is a brief message after too long a silence. The days have been out of this world here in Highland Perthshire: it has been the sort of winter I most love. Not deep snow around the house: bare ground and bitter frost. The crackling of every star from early evening: that bang of cold when the back door is opened after dark and the night, silent and huge, reveals itself. Impossible to go out for a bucket of coal and not stop to listen to the hugeness of the night. And there, last night, a deer only yards from the house. I felt that sense of awe and wonder I have felt so many times over the years: this privilege at being on the threshold of another kingdom. The deer waited and watched; I waited and watched, the pail hanging useless and pointless at my knee. It's often the kind of moment when poems come to the heart: they are out of time moments, sudden exits from the real, everydayness of the world into somewhere timeless, somewhere precious beyond words. But I didn't write any poem last night: I have visited and re-visited such moments here in Highland Perthshire, and it is difficult to go back and tread old ground in a new way.
What are there on Kindle is a volume of my selected poems especially put together for North American readers. Second Nature comprises much of my best-known work, but it's very much intended for an international readership. If you find it, pass on word of it. And look out for the deer.
