Sleights Moor
Wandering About
A warm wind buffets the cheek.
Peewits beat, aimlessly bleat,
and curlews shout against puffs of white cloud.
Competing skylarks, pipits in sixes and sevens,
and oh! the moss underfoot is so green.
Black-faced ewes and lambs
look over their shoulders and stare.
Red grouse yell, ‘go back, go back . . .’
So long it has been since
these fallen stones stood in a ring.
Here, a shooter’s empty half-bottle
of Prince Charlie’s whisky;
I slip it beneath a fallen megalith – it can stay there
until the next ice age.
H Nicholson
12.6.2012
I so enjoyed this walk with you on the moors……..hate the thought of a broken bottle in such an ancient space, but love that you hid it away to confuse the people of the future:)
Loved the imagery all through this. The sad but also very clever way of leaving the bottle there until its discovered after the next ice age. Reminds me so much (in a way) of Stonehenge.
Idyllic imagery, suddenly shattered a bit by man’s more ugly presence. But I kind of like how you left it there. In a way, I guess it is all there because of man’s presence, so leaving the tow to merge until the next ice age is perhaps the best way to deal with it and letting the beauty in the scene continue to outshine the carelessness.
Thanks, Viv. We’ve just been battered by hail – I felt for the moor birds and their chicks.
This one’s a beauty, Harry, a happy poem. Beware that ultra-green moss – you could sink in up to your knees!.