counterpane: the bed of illness & recovery

the mountain: like a body

beneath a blanket

– after Ransetsu

still me, it seems, awake in the quiet

of another room

healing loves to wrap itself

in a blanket

open the window

shoo the fug out the room

soft orders of quilt

marshal my dreams

seeing the mattress in the street we share a laugh:

she wants to bounce on it, I want a lie down

it’s wise to pack your own parachute

& make your own bed

whumping the pillows

care not cure

for the sake of equality

shake the duvet


















her fists sleep tight

fillips of light blow in at the window


pain stays within the blanket

speech reaches out of the bed

the sheet’s daubed with dark patches

for the ill blankets are a sign of labour

sheets a sign of defeat

in the realm of health

sleep is wealth

the setting in which a body

rests its landscape: blanket

beneath the nullity of the blanket

there is the good of a rest

some climb the hills with their legs

others use their knees to shape duvet mountains

for the bed-bound the idea of ‘free time’, ‘leisure time’, or ‘rest’, is insulting

time in bed is devoted to long spells of laboured passivity

seeking brief episodes of recovery


rest is shelter for a body filled with weather

from that day on her bed became a den

bedrooms can be navigated in terms of distant inaccessible landscapes

tweed is the closest cultural approximation of nature

there should be no moving thing in the bedroom

except perhaps a candle flame

we each have a bedtime name

Ransetsu, retranslated from the Spanish of Jorge Carrera Andrade by Joshua Beckman and Alejandro de Acosta

Some of these poems were first exhibited in the exhibition, Day of Access, Travelling Gallery, 2019; some were first published in Paidemua magazine, 2020.

Alec Finlay

photographs by Hannah Devereux, originally published in A Far-off Land.

on paths

day for night

song

song

we have been

to the end

of the path

and are ready

for our beds

and dreams

of pillow hills

a firm staff

in our hands

and the inclin-

ation to leave

old arguments

limit is part of life

on walking

a walk coincides with itself

at the moment we turn for home

a walk places our life

outside of our self

a walk is something to take with us 

as we leave it behind

the doctor handed me a prescription:

one wee walk every day

a lot of wee walks will get you

further than one big hike

he walked like a cat

avoiding a clothes peg

there’s no need to seek the perfect walk

there’s always another on the horizon

each walk and each

step in the walk

mind your feet

move your head

lose your feet

find your head

mind your head

move your feet

find your feet

lose your head

after Daniel Kharms

beginning with a line sort of from Daniel Kharms

the trees sway their tippy-tops

the walkers walk in colourful socks

gathering bits of forest stuff

while their boots smile and nod

after Kharms

we’ll stop looking

   walkers go walking!

we’ve opened our eyes

   viewers go viewing!

we’ve stopped watching

   walkers gone walking!

we’ve closed our eyes

   viewers gone viewing!

give us the spunk to walk

   gummy pines

give us the guts to stop

     foamy burns

two gates

The Mountain of Patient-led Healthcare

These drawings are from a classic guide to mountain rescue.

Separated from the text, I found the illustration were touching images of human vulnerability, care, solidarity, and love for one another. Drifting them away from their context of the heroic mountains, I adapted them to contexts of healthcare and activism.

The pairings are, firstly, Maggie Jencks and her friend Laura Lee. Laura was a chemotherapy nurse who treated Maggie and went on to become the chief executive of Maggie's Centres, which remains one of the most radial examples of patient-led healthcare.

The other pairing, Derek Jarman and Simon Watney, represents two tireless campaigners for a respectful and unprejudiced response to HIV/AIDS. Wanted was the co-founder of OutRage.

They climbed the mountain for all of us.

Signpost (rest)

ways of seeing

These drawings are some of the ways I've represented landscape and the physical experience of walking, or illness. The book pages were from guides to mountain rescue and navigation.

sun & rain walks

name walks

The first thing I did when I began my residency with Paths for All is take out the maps for a few locations where I knew there were walking groups I might work with. I noted some of the more interesting names and sourced translations of their meanings.

From these names I could then make pairs that suggested imaginary walks, or walk poems, if a poem can be such a simple thing as a pair of names. 

These walks are not necessarily routes that make sense, on the ground. I'm not sure if anyone will ever walk them. Rather the thematic connections offer an awareness of what names tell us about landscapes and ecologies.

As large numbers of people are forced into isolation and walking groups cease their activities for weeks, perhaps months, name walks are one imaginative way to remain connected to the landscape.

The examples illustrated here relate toPFA walk groups in Moodiesburn, North Lanarkshire, and Hospitalfields, Arbroath. They express all of the common-sense that names contain – where to find different things, what species belong where, the lows and highs of the land. 

And they invite a walker to consider what was is and could be on a local walk. 

Are there lapwings calling on Peasiehill. 

What the berries are growing around the fank – fold or pen – at Berryfauld?

The gled is a kite: there are only a couple of hundred of breeding pairs in Scotland so they will be rare now locally.

Barrs recalls the Gaelic that lies beneath names in this region, as it comes straight from bàrr, top or head.

These posts are published as part of a year-long artist in residence, funded by Paths for All.

some compasses

a compass will align the winds design

Of a' the airts the wind can blow
I dearly like the west
For there the bonnie lassie lives
The lassie I lo'e the best

How we align ourselves is one way to know where we are or feel we wish to be. Robert Burns song exemplifies this sense of direction, creating a conspectus of desire. The poet knows where he's going and why: Jean Armour lives in that airt.

The identities of the 4 airts – quarters of the compass – will always have meaning for us, even if my north is your south and your east my west. The compass also creates lines of connection, pairing NS and EW.

This form, which could be called a compass poem, plays with some classic topographical themes and their symbolism. As poems, there isn't always a reason why I have placed each element where it is. They are playful arrangements of thought. They also refer to recurring themes in my work:

counterpane (the landscape of the bed)

hill names, such as the elemental pairing of black/white

place-names, where the farms of a valley or estate are identified by their location (here at Moodiesburn, North Lanarkshire)

stones with symbolism, for example, as the famous Shelter Stone in the Cairngorms

tree species, which define a landscape

These posts are published as part of a year-long artist in residence, funded by Paths for All.