I stood alone at the head of the grey crag
where the rain-prism’s leaping light cut crystal tears
and the sky was a broad window upon life
where sunbeams shifted
those ridgeway hills were the backbone and sinews
those free-watered rivers were veins and vessels
those hard-shouldered highways for feet and great wheels
the paths of thinking
those towns and the square plantations of Sitka
features on a great face and a moving form
those farwaway snows were a sweep of a hand
a sleight of the wind
the small things and those that are trodden under
were the unnumbered hairs upon a young head
like sounds lifted up by the relentless breeze
the rustle of birds
if I had a love I would not give her wealth
nor a wish for years and the morning’s beauty
nor yet my own promises of faithfulness
I would give landscape
I would give the endless march and dance of clouds
their patching across the green and brown and grey
the sway of the flax-field in summer moments
like waves in the firth
I would give the brash collage of the city
the spillage and rust of abandoned seaports
the heather-lost and bracken-buried ruins
the heart-seeds of hills
for it is from those stones and tree-tall columns
that all memories and journeyings are made
through life and through the corridors of dreaming
where I hold treasure
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