Front Cover -- About the Author -- Copyright -- Table of Contents -- Acknowledgements -- For the Opening of the Scottish Parliament, 9 October 2004 -- Acknowledge the Unacknowledged Legislators! -- The Cost of Pearls -- Lines for Wallace -- The Battle of Bannockburn -- James IV To his Treasurer -- Retrieving & Renewing -- Planet Wave -- Valentine Weather -- Three Songs -- The Red Coat -- Knock at the Door -- The Good Years -- Old Gorbals -- 1955 - A Recollection -- My First Octopus -- Boethius -- Charles V -- Oscar Wilde -- Hirohito -- New Times -- Gorgo and Beau -- Questions I -- Questions II -- The Welcome -- Brothers and Keepers -- The Old Man and E.A.P. -- An Old Woman's Birthday -- For David Daiches, on his Ninetieth Birthday -- A Birthday: for I.H.F. -- Wild Cuts (with Hamish Whyte) -- Natural Philosophy -- A Bird Too Many -- Sure of a Big Surprise -- A Drip Too Many -- Soothe and Improve -- A Whizz Too Many -- Last Days -- A Movement Too Many -- Five Paintings -- Salvador Dali: Christ of St. John of the Cross -- Sir Henry Raeburn: Portrait of Rev. Robert Walker Skating on Duddingston Loch -- Rembrandt: Man in Armour -- Joan Eardley: Flood-Tide -- Avril Paton: Windows on the West -- Love and a Life -- The War on the War on Terror -- Conversation in Palestine.