Bennachie

BENNACHIE

There is a car-park
at the back of Bennachie
and a log-cabin loo in preservative green.
Forestry Commission firs populate the slopes -
these trees the new colonisers
of ground where men eked a bare living
before the lairds divided the land.

The cone of the Mither Tap
oversees all Buchan and Strathbogie,
this Iron Age fort now tumble-down scree
- granite lintels weather slowly.

Twenty-nine bullocks are daily led
to pasture under the mountain's side -
the thirtieth loner, sufferer of sunburn,
is left companion to the tractor.

A road leads by "My Lord's Throat"
where the larynxed Don is littered
by stone teeth that seem to be
as old as Bennachie itself.

© Gerald England

Composed: Monymusk, 8th August 1989

Publications

1990 Kangaroos & Beans (USA)
1992 STEALING KISSES (Hyde, New Hope International)
1995 Northwords (UK)
1998 Perihelion (Internet)
1998 The Endless Mountains Review (USA)