prose poems from guest contributors: 10 David Borthwick

the ploughed fields with furrows mushed by November 5th & another eight weeks of rain from there. the narrow bridge is braided each side & the roads flow: twice on our hill above the river we island, winter of the rains, when new policy names each storm in turn—& they come in succession, bad dogs that won’t heel, & driving at their side the wind’s a diesel engine thrumming: west & south, all flood, all water, & the talk is raging torrents but I have never sensed anger, just confused river blundering onto banks & it no longer knows itself. the rain does not tire or peter. it keeps it up. hogmanay & my neighbour, mounting his quad, gives the storm a name you will not hear on the news.
 

© David Borthwick
 

David is a walker in the rain and a wanderer of fields, who teaches on the Environment, Culture & Communication masters programme at the University of Glasgow's School of Interdisciplinary Studies.

He's @BorthwickDave on twitter.