Moorland, Late October

from my upcoming Ebook Scottish Poems and Reveries

The soil stretches taut against the wind
like the skin of some vast sleeping creature,
purple-brown and bristling under a slate sky.
Each gust sends ripples through the rough grass,
bending the thin stems into temporary submission.

Bog cotton trembles on its fragile stalks,
little white flags of surrender to the desolation.
My boots sink slightly with each step,
the ground exhaling ancient moisture,
releasing the musty breath of decay.

A curlew's cry unravels across the emptiness,
thread-thin and mournful,
weaving through the spaces between clouds.
The peat holds centuries of silence,
broken only by my careful footfalls
and the whispered conspiracy of wind through sedge.

No trees stand here to break the horizon,
just the occasional torn fence post,
weathered gray as old bones,
marking boundaries that mean nothing
to the ravens that wheel overhead,
their shadows sliding across the moor
like dark thoughts.