The morning star remains hidden,
Its transition secret and mysterious
Among the fish-spine branches of Douglas fir,
Fingers clutching misty shroud;
The woods, soft with velvet moss and heather,
Crowded with oaks, birch and delicate rowan trees,
The realm of the oak king,
Are haunted by birdsong:
Redstart, willow warbler, chiff-chaff and robin,
Who dance like ancient spirits in the scattered sunlight.
The tall weathered limbs of Scots pine
Glow ochre-orange in the first glimmer of twilight.
Like pilgrims of the wild
We walk the winding paths,
The secret ways,
Beside loch and forest, under the fierce
Watchful eyes of osprey and hunting buzzards
And the prying stares of timid creatures
In the dim depths of the thicket.
Our footfalls are hushed on the pine-needle paths,
As we search the silence, listening to
The wild wind, whisper the forbidden
Tales of the wilderness and the holy echoes
Of the high places.
We watch ripples rise on the dark water
Exhaust themselves on the far shore;
Listen to the melancholy lament of reeds
In the corner of the loch,
The heather rattle to the curlew’s tune
And the treetops sway to the ghostly fiddle
Of Niel Gow, sending the mist retreating
From the mountains, to reveal the land
At last, bathed in a sacred light:
Casting the veil from our vision.
