Dead wife’s wood

by Bridget Khursheed

It’s larch and light inside
no heart-shaped oak acreage

or weeping willows
There must be a story.

Where Manor meets Drumelzier
and Dawyck the burn flows

down by a small cairn grave
a woman fleeing massacre

to die in a lee corner
down from Posso Rig.

Meanwhile Murderdean is a bit of the A7 
near Newtongrange station.

It is not romantic to
remember violent death:

with three more Murdercleuchs here,
it is a clear warning not to walk this way.

But today goldcrest are the only alerts
flit deep in green.