View from Daviot Lodge of Strathnairn in autumn, Inverness-shire, Scotland.

Poem.

 

The hilly hinterland

of the Moray Firth

is a gentler, softer world than

the grandeur and ruggedness of

the North-West Highlands.

Glacial, Ice-Age, till has made

for a fertile hundred-mile crescent.

Wheat, Barley and Oats

grow in profusion.

Grass, too.

So, plenty of pasture for cows and sheep.

Strath Nairn harbours the River Nairn,

a water-supply that takes habitation

back 4,000-5,000 years ago at Clava Cairns-

stone-built Burial Chambers.

Farms, lodges, villages and isolated dwellings are numerous

between swathes of mature deciduous woodland

and Forestry Commission plantations of Spruce and Pine.

Here, in late Autumn, the low sun’s rays

catch the broad-leaved metamorphosis,

and glows like the embers of a homely fire in a hearth.

Castles and rivers,

waterfalls and gorges,

hills and valleys,

viaducts and bridges,

fields and Whisky distilleries

are but a few of the convivial offerings.

 

Done