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CLIMBING ARRAN MAWDDWY
Yellow sun blazes behind the cloud-race Arran rears up, turf and shale, sheer drop of many-layered rock. Birds sing, pipit, lark, stone-chat calling, thread the forest patches sudden, deep pools of pine; flowers quilt open places orchids, buttercups, idly straying sheep stone walls and foxgloves, seeding rushes and betraying bog. Only we climbing are rootless, cannot escape our own shadow love and hate, sorrow guilt and the stir of pleasure these follow spread like sporing ferns. Heights are lost heavy with cloud, searching winds probe and. quarry thought. Dusk is a dropped flower part of the dark descent.
MARGUERITE EDMONDS

CLIMBING ARRAN MAWDDWY

Yellow sun blazes
                  behind the cloud-race
Arran rears up, turf and shale,
sheer drop
of many-layered rock.
                  Birds sing,
pipit, lark, stone-chat calling,
thread the forest patches
sudden, deep
                  pools of pine;
flowers quilt
                  open places
orchids, buttercups,
idly straying sheep
stone walls and foxgloves,
                  seeding
rushes and betraying bog.

Only we
           climbing
are rootless, cannot escape
                  our own shadow
love and hate, sorrow
guilt and the stir of pleasure
                  these follow
spread like sporing ferns.

Heights are lost
                  heavy with cloud,
searching winds
probe and. quarry thought.
Dusk is a dropped flower
                  part
of the dark descent.

MARGUERITE EDMONDS

from
The Hallamshire & Osgoldcross Poetry Express #2

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