Green Cleugh

Skip, walk, amble, trot -

Crossing these stones is a watershed moment

Splicing the cleugh

With angular heft

They dance the line

Between burn and pasture

Between flood and scree.

Red Road, Green Cleugh -

aye, but so much more besides.

A kaleidoscope keens;

spring-scent of sheep scat stirs

The cleugh

(between places

never somewhere in its own right)

thrums with life

that is not human

does not need human

prefers life without humanity.

Best to remember it.

Think of times your feet were sodden

in red mud.

That same mud that frustrated soldiers

marching, dreaming, tripping

as they moved ever further

from warm hearths

and welcoming bosoms.

That same same gold-pink scree

you launch yourself down

for the hell of it.

That swollen burn

you leap, miss, fall,

submerge

in a furious rage of swirling shock.

Think of those times,

but let the cleugh alone.

Let it live on

with verdant glory

undisturbed.