in clear and tranquil sufficiency

As  mentioned a few weeks ago, we did indeed head up to Grantown-on-Spey late yesterday afternoon, in order to attend the launch-event of the Nan Shepherd biography ...

... it was completely packed, with over 100 people present I reckon, and was thoroughly fascinating to hear from the author directly about her experiences of writing this first biography of Nan Shepherd.

We also managed a short visit (and walk) to Loch Morlich early this morning, prior to heading back to Edinburgh; thus this snap of the wonderful trees on the loch-edge :-)

And here's another poem from Nan Shepherd's only collection:


Winter Branches

Against the smoke-browned wall
The browner winter branches
Stand out hardly at all;
They do not tremble in the misty evening.

But under the open sky
Where the stars in clear and tranquil
Sufficiency go by,
They leap up quivering into the vastness

Like flame, like the thought of man
Leaping from earth's nurture,
Through span on alien span,
To tremble around the stars its kindred.

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Nan Shepherd (1893-1981)

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