Motorcyclist on Rannoch Moor

Rannoch at close of day, by kindling flame

Of an evening roadside fire

The canvas door of my tent

Flaps in a biting wind

A friend passes on a motorbike

Aiming across the Moor in failing light.

Do not console me with memories of summer

Do not give promise of those warmer times in store

I'll take the present, these days of living now

Bold days of confrontation, winter on the prowl.

O land of Scotland, at this changing time,

Wind turning silently over the lake

At summer's end

Glancing of sunrays tossed on the evening lochan

See how they dance

All things in movement out toward stark conclusion.

The wind and weather clamour harsh and loud

Showering the soil but fail in valley low

To quench my hearth that fast takes fire and coils

By the sad waters of the River Coe.

How hard this yearning for the day

When there comes only peace

How strong the spirit draws me on

To dark winter

Alone how very lonely in the wild

And far from home.

Pulled onwards through the blast

Cry onwards always onward to the end

Life's end over the next horizon

A hard reaching out this life a parting departing.

Dark river flowing in and out of life - pause by the reeds -

And call recall the autumn long ago

When we were young and Will was lost

Seasons turned by with many a bitter snow and long hoar frost.

Your voices turn and mutter in these streams,

Strange people of the hill.

They found his body later down the glen

Shot past the Moor like arrow bound for tree

Tossed me a wave in fond farewell to men

Broke forth for freedom and finality.

You can take your summer days I tell you

I'll strike up fires along the river Coe

The zest of living in the present moment

The fire of life ablaze in the glorious present

That flickers over the snows of years.

Indifference is a cold city

But we had friendship in a lonely land

And laughed at the ill-dark chaos fore and aft

Now on to death and harsh winter

Where love springs from the birth of streams

In derelict dreams and hope.

Then blow evening wind - down the dark glen boom -

Long after the campfire fails in the deep night

Bear off my weary spirit far in the earthy heath.

Now these clouds stream endless on the gale

Ceaseless ever ceaseless, cast on consuming gloom

Turning ever inward on the colder winter wind:

See how the wind hurries away the sun

Watch how the clouds carry the sheets of rain

Patches of gold swift through the twilight run

On the blown waste

Dull cry of whaup on the moorland grey

And the wind turning in haste.

Richard Henderson