Snowdrop Walk

Skirting Inverleith pond I pass a pair of Canada
geese, black with patches of white on throat and tail,
protecting their young; and later in the Botanics
(the geriatrics, myself among them, and the electric

buggies out in force), see on a bench overlooking
the snowdrop walk two figures in white headgear
and skirts, under capacious black cloaks, clearly
the vesture of some order. My tentative greeting

receives a cheery ‘hello’, rich brown faces breaking
into luminous smiles, though their eyes are invisible
behind sunglasses. Later I meet them at the main gates
admiring a silver lime, hands folded in their laps

as if in meditation, revealing slivers of white. They
move on, leaving me wondering whether my journey
will lead to darkness or light; where they themselves
are heading; and who will be soothed by their blessing?

Underwood, Stewart Conn’s fourth pamphlet of poems from Mariscat, delves further into the poet’s central concerns: the natural world, family, love, and the ephemeral nature of life.

"These poems have such warmth and lightness, and yet such syntactic control …they contain all the creatures of the air – birds, ghosts, angels… even music floating on the breeze."—Kate Hendry