Images from Scottish Highlands and Islands

Images from the Scottish highlands and islands. These accompany "Dawn Dreams in a Glasgow Cafe."

Photos:

Clouds over Little Minch and the Outer Hebrides

Cathedral trees

Downy birch

Forest of fir

High heather

Low tide on the Firth of Clyde

Sycamore roots with moss and boulder

The mirror face of Eilean na Moine on Loch Eilt

Videos:

Wavelets kiss the sea-aster shore (Firth of Clyde near the Mount Stuart House)

Loch Shiel at Glenfinnan (near the monument to Bonnie Prince Charlie):

High burn with bracken and heather:

Sound of Sleat in fog with ragwort and wind:

Stumbling Toward a Brampton Manor

Brampton, Cumbria, UK
July 12, 2018

When you exit the two-car train 

outside the village of Brampton 

and leave the lonely platform

tugging wobbly wheeled bags 

loaded with too much stuff 

the mile or two toward an old manor 

which your wife saw on the web 

and Google diverts you down a dwindling lane 

lined with loosestrife and ragwort  

where cattle crowd the mid-day shade 

and watch you weary on 

till the surface turns to gravel 

and your wife and daughter forge ahead  

while you tend bags beside the rusting gates 

of a deserted dairy farm 

composing prayers for traveling mercies 

parsing signs and portents 

as the Brampton black cat 

freezes your soul with yellow-green eyes 

and claims your suitcases 

well

this is when a lanky farmer named James 

ambles up, asks if you’re lost 

or Canadian 

then offers a ride in his sawdust truck 

and you choose to trust 

because this is Cumbria 

and life is good – 

your belly’s full 

and the sun held for one more day. 

Tomorrow, let it rain.