CAITHNESS GLOSSARY
broch … = Pictish Towers (Ancient Monuments)
sepulchral weals … = Ancient burial mounds
ghostly druid-stones … = Druidical Standing Stones and Stone Circles
Clearance … = Highland Clearances
flimsy boxes …. = Pretentious new housing, staggered higgledy piggledy
to peep between neighbouring houses for a piece the view.
fresh and eager crop … = Youth
peaty-flows … = Flow Country. The world’s largest blanket bog, with a
delicate eco-system.
foreign firs … = (a) Non-native trees, planted by speculators, which
upset the balance of nature. (b) Incomers.
CAITHNESS
He falls and snuggles like a lover to the floor;
dreams spilling from the bottle in the weathered hand.
Beyond the door, dead brochs lie buried on the moor.
Forebears are but sepulchral weals upon the land.
Dreams spilling from the bottle in the weathered hand,
where ghostly druid-stones gather for the moon-dance.
Forebears are but sepulchral weals upon the land,
grey-tombs, blending with the plunder of the Clearance.
Where ghostly druid-stones gather for the moon-dance,
frail farmer huddles in the shelter of the dell;
grey-tombs, blending with the plunder of the Clearance,
as flimsy-boxes march in fashion on the swell.
Frail farmer huddles in the shelter of the dell.
The peasant wearies of the burden of the toil,
as flimsy boxes march in fashion on the swell,
to shoulder for the view they one-day will despoil.
The peasant wearies of the burden of the toil,
just as a fresh and eager-crop spring from the seed
to shoulder for the view they one-day will despoil,
aware the time has come to take the misty-lead.
Just as a fresh and eager-crop spring from the seed,
out on the peaty-flows the foreign-firs take hold,
aware the time has come to take the misty-lead,
with roots deep-nourished by the corpses in the mould.
Out on the peaty-flows the foreign-firs take hold.
Beyond the door, dead-brochs lie buried on the moor.
With roots deep-nourished by the corpses in the mould,
he falls and snuggles like a lover to the floor.
Charlie Gregory
Caithness
