When I booked into Robert Smail’s Printing Press in Innerleithen for a letterpress workshop, I needed some words to practise with. My friend, Lindsay Macgregor, is a gifted poet and she’d been commissioned to write a poem about Peeblesshire as part of an anthology of poems from across the UK. I think her riddle sums up the Tweed and surroundings perfectly and I chose the last line of it for my poster. I had to leave half-way through the workshop because of a family crisis. So, my poster is rather unfinished. But I love it because of the words. It’s pinned up above my desk. Lindsay has a copy in her writing bothy too!
Riddle By Lindsay Macgregor
Whaur a cuddy springs fae a saugh tree’s ruit
Whaur a dead burn rinns thick-thrang wi troot
Whaur black dod’s white as fleece an horn
Whaur merlin bides aneath a thorn
Whaur fower mills kirned a muckle manor
Whaur cornet and whipman march as they canter
Whaur a barony hauds braid Scotland set
Whaur steekit yetts are steekit yet
Whaur lamb law lilts tae a lintie’s leid
Whaur aw life glisters in a length o’ tweed
This poem first appeared in A Bee’s Breakfast, Beautiful Dragons Press, 2016.
