The hill was there to lift me up

Just a little bit behind with blipping this week - several 'backblips' about to be posted ;-)

Mountains on my mind; so here's a favourite from within the pictured 2011 collection by Andrew Greig:


Knoydart Revisited

The little boat across Loch Hourn
skittered on the shingle.
We stepped ashore: late May in my life.

She went to Luinne Bheinn with our friends
and I had Ladhar Bheinn to myself,
sun on shoulders all the way.

Few details remain, but a sense
of hours of solitude and strength.
The hill was there to lift me up.

No false top. I wished there had been -
sweet with sweat and turf and ptarmigan,
that ridge could have risen all afternoon.

At the cairn I thought to her
on her own summit, loving it,
loving me by line of sight.

I set off down, exultant.
Each step flowed on to the next,
joltless, as though hill and hip were one.

We met up at Barrisdale, full of our day.
Years later we parted. Dear companion,
there are some hills and people

we cannot return to,
because nothing would be the same,
because we never left them.

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Andrew Greig (1951 - )

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