Final day and we are at Glasgow Green. Working with those lining up to be let in at 7pm – for the final send off- and draping myself over a queue barrier met many shorter spectators who had fun pulling poetry off a perforation, and telling me what they thought of what they read there.

I met so many wonderful folk in this project’s installation, I am grateful for all those who said yes, and made me smile with their responses, and all those who said no, were honest and disinterested, and didn’t just meet me with the lie of a polite silent suffering. I met two at the head of the queue who reminded me that a bucket list is for those who want to take their life, and kick a bucket, and that the list should be one of FIRSTS, of number ONE’s- that you want to tick off, not a collection of experiences to do before you die.

I carried a gentleman’s empty IRN BRU cans to somewhere else so his queue experience could be less encumbered, and I thought, yes this is what it is for, connection  – it is to remind you that not everything is a sale.

I met Marie in-queue. Marie is all green, open, smiling eyes framed by a calypso green collar, an olive green leather jacket. After spinning the lines about being able to open any chocked dark door with the blink of a hurricane eye, and being a wrinkle that grew younger with every stumble on a ‘why’ – she shared with me her own favourites. Edwin Morgan and the fog pawing at the men beside the green – “meth men mutter on benches, pawed by the river fog”…and how amazing it was to be at school at Charlottes , right beside this queue as we trudge along, and read poems about the Green right alongside a classroom. Or Duke St , just up the road, my favourite being the line about the ambulance:

“only the hungry ambulance

hows for him through the staring squares”

I think I’m off now, post-project, queues poeticised to the best of my ability, to settle and sleep, “longing  / longing  / shall find its wine…”

till next we can meet poetry in person, in a waiting time.