Listen to the world’s best poetry read out loud.

The signpost lifts me above a mire I do not own,

blued hope and rusted dreams, poor things, but my own.

Desire washes me clean of this hoar-frost,

for a bracken-patched parcel of land I long to own.

My breath rises to match the slumbering mountain,

a winged ache to escape into a view, my heart’s own.

Unable to buy or borrow castles in the air,

my wish uncurls as I sleep to wake on its own.

I pay to rebuild my life’s shieling, breaking apart

among golden ferns with faults all my own.

Dust-tired as shingle too far from the loch-side,

I am spent thin on others. A truth I cannot disown.

The roof is collapsing. I can offer no support,

rattling empty in a full house, without time on my own.

An echo over water carries my name, without question

or anchor holding me still, coming into its own.

A love in the leaving, treading those three

mossy syllables, Alba, waiting to call it my own.

My life is mortgaged. The dreams in my pocket

are loose change and that is all the estate I own.