Set off, coals in the grate, the enveloping smell of rising dough, icicles at the window panes like lost walrus dentures, the rones heavy with icy curbs of snow – up the hill and off the track past the drift where seven sheep lie buried just feet from the Wellington pocks, on and up to the brow, the white plateau, beyond call, silent, the still point of the calendar. Move on from here, in lighter, laced shoes, more nimble, down brae, and it’s the rushing, gurgling sound of the burn, turbulent with melted snow, that fills the heart with the clatter and drum of adventure, spurred by the chirrups of the early thrush and the bleat of lambs – the first steps of a new journey charted, here and there, in the scatter of snowdrops and primroses amongst the returning, slowly re-blushing green. We’ll dip in these pools come August, down by the Billy goat gruff iron bridge in the lee of the Rowan tree, splashed by the stone-mauling hounds – before laying out Milanese sausage and Norman cider on the rug, forgetting everything in the strip-search and kiss of the sun and the lazy buzz of insects, whiling away the long hours of daylight, thinking: that is the perfect verb for summer hours, on the boundaries of active and passive. Autumn makes sense of that everything – itemised and painfully recollected – when October is golden and the waters are the blue of a Celtic heaven, the sun strong but not too insistent, wistful dreams rolled into that small, local heat and dry embery smell of roasted chestnuts, a foretaste of Christmas, when the gentleness and purity of candlelight touches us in our darkness with the flicker of a promise – before we step out again, wrapped, determined, wearier by degrees, into the isolating cold.

Winter to autumn

Abruptly conceived in this aching void, long-cooled memory of the stars before the bang.

Then bursting hopeful rising tumult forward unmeasured in youthful bounds.

Gazing back later, in hazy languor, to when dull regret first pierced daggers.

And standing ready one golden morning, naked, stripped of dreaming, to abandon the rest to other arms.

Spring in the Highlands is a shrinking bride
Come lately to the wedding, if at all
Her bouquet may be blossom though disguised
As snowflakes whirling on a lambing squall
Summer blazes through in May then skulks
Behind a veil of rain till August, when
She hitches up her skirts for one last reel
And splashes northern hills with wine again
October frost sets woods aflame as geese
Sketch stately chevrons under limpid skies
While rowan berries cluster bright as blood
And early snows dust crags and hilltops high
Mid-winter darkness gnaws at afternoon
By February hungry deer roam low
But days are lengthening again at last
Till snowdrop petticoats the bridesmaids show

A prayer

Hear my prayer, oh Lord, and let my crying come unto thee

Newness of life is all around,
Nature’s beauty a hymn to thee.
But even Spring’s perfect harmonies
Cannot reach the cavern in my soul.

Release me from my fear, oh Lord;
Oh Lord, hear my prayer.

The life-giving sun is a siren of hope,
How I long for the heat of Summer’s rays.
It comes – and yet I burn, I freeze;
Your gift eludes my beleaguered heart.

Instead be thou my strength, oh Lord;
Oh Lord, hear my prayer.

The golden hues of Autumn’s leaves
Promise contentment, inner peace.
But the warmth I see in others’ eyes
Seems always just beyond my reach.

Spare me from myself, oh Lord;
Oh Lord, hear my prayer.

Winter’s nights draw ever closer,
The darkness without meets the darkness within.
Where, oh where, are joy and love?
My flame, oh Lord, burns so very low.

Be thou my light of hope, oh Lord;
Oh Lord, hear my prayer.

Opening the curtains,
I hear the blackbird singing,
catch his eye and
together we welcome
spring’s approach.

Approaching the sea,
I smell the summer salt
and search for crabs
in rock pools glinting
in the sun’s rays.

Raising my eyes
while walking through windfalls
nibbled by insects,
I wait to see if another
apple will fall.

Falling into a sofa’s
deep cushions, I shrug away
winter’s grip, pleasingly
on the cusp of sleep,
with the door closed.