When all this is over

I mentioned at the start of last month that we've got a trip planned, for mid-June (restrictions allowing!), up to Strathcarron - and I've been checking further on some potential walking routes; been reading through my pictured copy of Richard Gilbert's classic 1994 volume ... and thinking of two 'circular walks': of Maol Chean-Dearg; and of Coire Lair and Eason Dorcha ...

... all got me thinking on Kathleen Jamie's poem below, which was first published in her 1999 volume entitled, Jizzen. It seems most appropriate for the circumstances of the day:


Lochan

When all this is over I mean
to travel north, by the high

drove roads and cart tracks
probably in June,

with the gentle dog-roses
flourishing beside me. I mean

to find among the thousands
scattered in that land

a certain quiet lochan,
where water lilies rise

like small fat moons,
and tied among the reeds,

underneath a rowan,
a white boat waits.

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Kathleen Jamie (1962 - )

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