Rachel McCrum - The Secret Howff Poem #10

We caught the hare first
white with those black tipped ears
flinching above us.

The cold enough to taste.
The silence enough to hear.
The light pale enough to feel.

My lacking eyes thinking the land grand
but empty, until the grouse
flew out ahead of us

and the pose of stags
and picking hinds on the ridge above
let us know we were observed.

Anyway, we turned at the right rowan tree,
paused to query a path I didn't know
but felt somewhere that this was the end of the road.

The track ahead snowed up past burns
to Beinn a Bhurd. One way further, deeper, colder in.
The other back to the car park.

Past the stillness of that hare,
we saw two backpacks
flip fast over the hill's lip.

We panted our own way up, saw those cunning stones
greystacked, and I thought it was only polite to knock
the half height door before we entered.

We'd thought Ashie's name would be enough
but they were wary until we earned our seats
on those boards with our own stories.

Nonsense, really. A tale spun here,
a family yarn unravelled there.
Just chat, a tumble of words to clear minds.

They told us they'd come from Ayrshire.
(How? When? We'd never seen them
ahead of us this whole time)

The steelworks had closed
'and rither than sittin on oor backsides, gettin depressed'
they were bagging the munroes.

Two hundred and six at the last take
although finding it harder to get out
now the winter was in.

But they chuckled 'oor wives
like us oot of tha hoose
at any rate.'

And then I thought I heard one say
'It's the stories that open us.'
And when he said 'stories', I heard

'it's the feet carrying us through open air that free us
it's the knowledge of our land that binds us
it's that which costs us nothing that heals us.'

So we sat with our pieces
on sawn down chairs
tight against the wind.

Hail graining off the one clear plastic corrugated sheet.
Some act of generosity from those
that build these things.

They sat silent, ghosting faint smiles
as we spoke a little selfconsciously
for the tape.

Outside and after
they got the march on us,
headed off back down the glen.

Our eyes dropped to catch a red flower
rare amongst the heather, the shiny droppings,
the pale and clutching lichen.

When we looked up again,
we couldn't see them
not for money nor for love.