My shadow jumps huge miles away from me

Haven't blipped a poem for nearly a full calendar month!

... so, here's Norman MacCaig, at his very best, and as taken from the pictured (and truly wonderful), 2010 collection:


Climbing Suilven

I nod and nod to my own shadow and thrust
A mountain down and down.
Between my feet a loch shines in the brown,
It's silver paper crinkled and edged with rust.
My lungs say No;
But down and down this treadmill hill must go.

Parishes dwindle. But my parish is
This stone, that tuft, this stone
And the cramped quarters of my flesh and bone.
I claw that tall horizon down to this;
And suddenly
My shadow jumps huge miles away from me.

 ---

Norman MacCaig (1910 – 1996)

---