Rising at seven to get my son up
To do his paper round;he hardly stirs,
Grunts and turns over. What occurs
If he is late, that the shop phones up
(I know I've had two 'ups', but I don't care -
Poets can do that, being as free as air)
To ask what's wrong - I try again,
Then the postman rings at the back door,
A 'Recorded Delivery' booklet to be signed,
Some circulars, things to be put in train.
I grab some money for the Citizen
And my Times voucher from a pile of stuff
Lying on the kitchen surface, find myself
A pair of shoes and put them on again:
Sometimes it feels the hundred thousandth time
And yet I have to - go outside and climb
Down the stone steps,turn left outside the gate
Past number seven, hesitate
Where the 'rubber brae' goes up the hill
In case a stray pedestrian should pass.
I choose to stay close to the burn; the grass
Is very high, the ducks paddle along
Behind the vegetation: they've tried to kill
All the giant hogweed plants, and here and there
You see their stalks, discoloured, sticking high
Above the rest. A shame to make things die,
But if they sting, cause children to fall ill
I suppose it's better that their stalks are bare.
Over the road, past the red phone near
The paper shop, whose owner is a friend
And has a son at school, a pleasant boy -
He's sold up now, and moved on. In the end
We all move on, in figure of speech or fact,
And yet stay fixed in our humanity
Or lack of it, our follies stay the same,
Perhaps reduced in number. Lack of tact
In my case, sometimes; sometimes urbanity,
A thin veneer (another cliche there -
How often are veneers thick? Once again
I'm not sure of the answer) camouflages the pain
We're feeling, the eternal refrain
Of who and why and what and how and where.
Don't think too much about it, just get on:
Past Rymonth Hostel, built some time ago
To give life for some folk a better quality;
A great success it's been. I think equality
Of opportunity to be as slow
Or fast as you want in life is so vital;
Most of us daily pour out a recital,
A catalogue of minor woes and troubles
So that the pot of mischief bubbles
Dangerously near the lip. Better to be
Content with your lot, or change it if you're not.
Across the park, push hard up the incline
Beside the roundabout, head past the swings -
Roundabout,swings - I won't delay us there
With facile comments on the state of things
But run past Woodburn, through a narrow lane
Where every year potatoes, rhubarb sprout
In deep dark earth, well-tended. Yesterday's rain
Will have done them no harm, though it kept
Most of us indoors; tourists must have wept
To see their hard-earned holiday awash.
Down to the East Sands Leisure Centre - tosh
To call it that: what's wrong with Swimming Pool?
I know it's more than that, I use it too
Occasionally; the children used to swim
At the weekends quite often, or after school.
When it was opened I attended; then
As now I chaired the Community Council, in between
Got chosen for the District Council in Ward Two,
St Andrews South. The pool is in Ward Four:
On opening day it was David Niven's ward: he stood
At the pool's edge in dressing gown, the cord
Hanging before he cast it off and plunged
Into the pool. That splash, symbolic, expunged
The many decades of Council refusal
To build a swimming pool, despite perusal
Of schemes from 1910 to 83. At last
Public appeals helped pay for it, and now
Michael Forsyth, the Secretary of State
(How long ago it seems) stands up to speak
About his student days, how he lived in a flat
Whose number - Ten - was probably the nearest
He'd get to Downing Street. It looks as if
He might be right, as if 10 Albany Park
Might have a plaque attached one day to its front door
'Michael Forsyth Lived Here'. I could say more
But now I've reached the sands where Edwin Muir
Walked with his son in 1944
And watched the sun come up, red, splendid across the bay.
Only a woman with her dog is there today; its paws
Scatter the gritty orange sand, it turns
To cast a very brief look at me,and then returns
To sniffing seaweed, dead crabs' claws.
Up to the end, over the mole,and cross
The metal bridge and past the sad cafe
Despite its coat of blue and white
It's hard to think that on that site
We couldn't have something better. Of course the same
Could well be said of the harbour block, the shame
The architects should feel at its flat roof
I've often ventilated. No reproof
Has yet come back to me. It seems
That just about everybody deems
That 1960s 're-development'
To be as interesting as watching paint
Dry. I pass it and try hard to bounce
Up the steep 'gasworks' slope; every ounce
Of energy is needed to keep going;
Heavy breathing at the top; I'm slowing
Down for a moment, pass the slit
In the cathedral wall where, legends say,
The White Lady was once immured. If at night
You stick your hand in, you just might
(Guess what the next rhyme is - I got you there -
It's just postponed) get a colossal fright
On feeling a clammy spectral hand
Clutching your own as shivering you stand
Wishing you'd gone to bed. Much more likely
That you feel nothing. This is taking ages -
You'll think that I'll need about fifty pages
To cover just three miles or so - I'll change the pace:
Along the Scores, past Hamilton I race
And down the Links, St Andrews Club, the New
(I once was a member there, when my career
Had just begun. In those days quite a few
Members of staff joined up to get cheap drink -
In those days druinking hours were more restricted,
Although (to make up) fewer were convicted
Of drunken driving. Things were different then -
A facile point to make - speed up again:
Through the wee lane to the A91
Where once a pedestrian bridge
(Not 'part of our industrial heritage',
As someone once said who ought to have known better,
But built to take the pupils of Madras
Down to the games field, Station Park - I'll pass
Over the various historical reflections
I might have made about the park's connections
With the first railway station, forget Cheape
And all that side of things, and leap
Like a demented frog up the embankment
That used to carry diesels - their enchantment
Not evident till 1964
When the Crail line closed, and then in 67 -
Or was it 69? - when the pure heaven
Of riding to Dundee was closed for good.
Now thee's a car park where the station stood,
Its high stone walls surmounted by a railing
On the east side; on the other a paling
To hide the tennis courts, now modernised
Where not just members play,it's advertised
That anyone can pay, and play its green
Weatherproof courts. At the far end
The previous council tried hard to defend
The sum it had budgetted to construct
A new St Andrews Library, but reluct-
Antly or not the new Fife Counc-
Il boycotted the project, put it on
The proverbial back burner. You can't bounce
Councils into doing things without clout.
Argyle Street, then the Wheypat - I don't go in;
It's far too early in the morning to consider sin
Except my own inadequacies, which are great
And I'll take all with me through the garden gate
But before I make for breakfast, I will drop
In at Central News to get the Citizen and Times
And carry them both home, don't stop
To see if the local paper has put in my rhymes
(They haven't, but I know they will).
The last four hundred metres: I pass a chap
I think from Rymonth Hostel, he begins to run,
Passes me, stops. I encourage him
Although on Melbourne Brae just a moment ago
He shouted out 'Arsehole!' - Well, maybe so,
At least to some extent, in others, not.
The chap comes to a standstill, he's out of breath,
Whereas I'm just warmed up (but a lot closer to death
Than him - still I'm just fifty nine
And apart from feeling guilty sometimes,I feel fine
And the day, thank goodness, is off to a good start.
In the holidays you can't tell all the days apart
But it's better to enjoy them;
If bored, you've got to re-deploy them.
That's it - lesson over, so's the run.
Now I can eat my toast and marmalade
In the sun.
