|
Rusty Iron
Ken Jones
A skyline slot in the shoulder of the mountain. Foaming burns,
boot-sucking bog, and the gleaming boiler plates of mica-schist.
Each footfall
sinking in the hoof print
of a deer
Finally I make it over into a closed-off upland. Just below is a long
loch, an exclamation mark full stopped by a shining lochan at the far
end. Late lunch on a buttock-shaped boulder.
Soda bread and honey
the mountain sits
apart, indifferent
Other mountains have wished me a happy birthday, but not this one, on
my seventy-fifth. There is usually at least a marker stone placed on
the occasional boulder; faint signs of a path along the ridge; a boot
print here and there. But on this one, nothing. As if no one had
ever been here before me.
The firm grip
of the world's oldest rock
on a pair of old boots
On the summit the red wink of my time-lapsed Olympus. And then the
mist and rain sweep in. I had marked my escape route on the map.
First rain drop
black arrows
blotched and running
The way lies down a long spur of broken rockfalls. Falling steeply to
left and right, the glens are loud with rushing water. Suddenly, quite
close below, a hind appears, bounds this way and that, and disappears
over the edge.
The nervous flick
of the compass
before it settles
Feeling nothing but the ground beneath my feet. Thinking of nothing
but what's next.
Lower down, and the mist thins. Ahead are the remains of an Edwardian
deer fence.
On three legs
a rusty iron upright
standing firm
|
