Fine and Dry

Allt a' Mhuillin, April


For the first time, the birchwood not by night,

path-bogs not sealed by corrugated ice;

for the first time, pied wagtails in the corries.

Pink sunshine slants through innocuous sleet-flurries.


Here on the Hut's rock-seats, snow-stripped, sun-warmed-

was it here we half-froze in the January storm?

Where the crampon drives through slush to brown-baked scree-

was that our icefall-route in February?


Did we tread here a snow that none had trod?

Did we glimpse here the hidden face of God?


Thanks to Tim Chappell for this memory of winter



Plenty of fine dry weather is leaving the rock warm and friendly.