Slow Boat to China (via Possil)

[Forth & Clyde Canal, Firhill Basin, 2.9.2012]

Bank of Earth

'Success' is lying on a bench all day and not feeling guilty about it.

The word bench derives from the proto-Germanic word "bankiz" referring to a 'man-made earthwork' or a 'bank of earth'. In my years of living (and not living) in Glasgow, I have come to discover many of these earthen banks, some of which are not so much earthy as woody or irony. Occasionally, a bench is so finely integrated into the environment that it is easy to miss it. But when you spend as much time as I do cutting about the city, on foot, and by bike, you start seeing benches in the most concealed of places. 'The world reveals itself to those who travel on foot', the German filmmaker Werner Herzog once said. And for many a weary traveller, these well-positioned benches, (doubling as perches for the poet inside), are an important part of this world.

[Top: Bench by the River Kelvin in the arboretum at Kirklee... 10th October, 2012 ]

[Middle: A 'bank of earth' in Bothwell Wood, by the evergreen River Clyde... 1st March 2013]

[Bottom: One of the many benches of serenity in the Fossil Grove, Victoria Park... 18th February, 2013]