I remember how, back in the 1980s, the Scottish Flow Country became an object of bemused controversy as rich celebrities and businessmen from south of the border acquired great tracts of this vast wetland in the far north in order to plant non-native conifer plantations that attract hefty tax breaks.
The fabric of a garden is determined as much by its textures as by its tonal range and architectural flair.
My father was this big, tough guy, almost heroic in proportion to me as a child. It was only later that I saw how fearful he was.
The Botanischer Garten in Berlin has one of Europe's finer winter trails, leading in careful order from glasshouses devoted to African-American and Australian desert species, through a fine collection of tropical plants, and on to the orchid house.
As a child, I read a great many books in which animals and birds played significant roles, not only in the narrative itself, but also in creating the emotional and psychological atmosphere of that narrative - the imaginative furniture, as it were, in which any story unfolds.
The way I mainly use the Internet is keeping in touch with poets that live far away. My main interest is contemporary American poets and some Spanish language poets, and I keep in touch with their work through either their websites or email.
I realised I'd spent a lot of time in my poetry trying to find a way of talking about that whereof we cannot speak.
It takes a true encounter to realise that real animals, wild animals, have all but passed from our lives.
