I claw that tall horizon down to this

Up to Stirling today - by train - and this hasty snap, of a diminishing horizon, reminded me of this well known Norman MacCaig poem:


Climbing Suilven

I nod and nod to my own shadow and thrust
A mountain down and down.
Between my feet a loch shines in the brown,
It's silver paper crinkled and edged with rust.
My lungs say No;
But down and down this treadmill hill must go.

Parishes dwindle. But my parish is
This stone, that tuft, this stone
And the cramped quarters of my flesh and bone.
I claw that tall horizon down to this;
And suddenly
My shadow jumps huge miles away from me.

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Norman MacCaig (1910 – 1996)

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