Poem for Mij

I thought I heard your voice so quiet call out across the moor:

'Its bold outside, let's go for a stalk, up go the petals and down with the fork.

In the road is a telling toad crouching just to lump it'

Surprised I replied whispering low into the reticent Loch:

'No Mij, its cold outside, let's go for a chalk, your voice is now just a draw'

(Then tussock grasses coloured greenish-blue waved to me by the shore.)



'Timed out time its time to break the whistles and the tanks. Water trickles, cracks appear and fry upon the shore.'

Her message rang clear but the words got lost. How misty it was that day! The words had blundered tripped and fell, but still, a clarion call.

'Ferris blocks, they turn in fours and when they round just five.'

I hoped to help with this advice as I sank deeper into moss.

'Wheels collide, that's six until its seven eight and pine'

I had to act, there was nothing for it, so chilling her reply.



Just then, a buzzard opened its beak, dropping a pebble into the Loch. The ripple created a sounding board across which we could talk.

We talked for hours of this and that and this is just a summary:

In place of snow I suggested floss, in place of teeth she suggested moss and on and on we gone.
Pebble after pebble dropped down by those skillful birds of Rannoch Moor.

(Now she says floss instead of moss and wonders at her tongue. And when I see snow my teeth turn green so convincing was her talk.)

An ambitious curlew curtailed our tale, dropping a pebble the size of a boat. I'd thought to board it, but knew if I did, I would be surely sunk without hope.

I thought I heard your voice today outside a leaden door. It shut so soundly so profoundly making me want more. 

Timed out time its time to break the whistles and the tanks. Water trickles, cracks appear and fry upon the shore.

Its bold outside let's go for a stalk, up go the petals and down with the fork. In the road is a telling toad waiting just to lump it. 

(No, let's go for a chalk, your voice now just a draw; remembering the elephants (that could no longer be no more)

Ferris blocks then turn in fours, and when they round just five. Wheels collide, that's six until they seven eight and pine.

Down by the loch I turned off the wood and watched it as it flew. Then self aware it turned and stared and chimneyed as it grew. 

Driving home I turned the sea until it went quite right.

It went away which is to say it gave itself a fright.

I will never know if that was really my friend calling me across the moor

But still I return year after year in the hope that I'll find her there.

I listen for echoes of Camper Van's wheels and strains of radio Baroque.

Heeding the deer calls at Rannoch Moor and listening down by the Lochs