The Cuillin ridge, Skye, from Sgurr nan Gillean

When I was a child
I saw as a child
Small
In the small things of landscape
Deep in the tickling grass
Held in the hollow of slow summer days
Now, like the grasshoppers-
Ghosts of memory
Gone forever

But now I am grown
And the woods are no longer wild
My dragons died through education
And the noise of cars on the B6139
(Heading for Newstead)
Drove away the bears.

Instead I lifted my eyes to the high places
Where horizons rolled from ridge to ridge
Always higher, always further north
Crossing the high, hard won corrie
Blood pumping
Free for a while
From the baser motives-
Above it all.

Then, slower now
At the end of heavy days
And in good company
I look again beneath my feet
And try not to trample flowers.