However sweetly the valley thrushes sing

Norman MacCaig on the descent from the Green Corrie (which you can read more about here), from the pictured 2010 collection ...

... I'm planning a fishing-trip to Lochan a Choire Ghuirm this coming October :-)


Descent from the Green Corrie

The climb's all right, it's the descent that kills you.
Knees become fists that don't know how to clench
And thighs are strings in parallel.
Gravity's still your enemy - it drills you
With your own backbone - its love is all to wrench
You down on screes or boggy asphodel

And the elation that for a moment fills you
Beside the misty cairn’s that lesser thing
A memory of it. Its not
The punishing climb, it’s the descent that kills you
However sweetly the valley thrushes sing
And shadows darken with the peace they’ve brought.

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Norman MacCaig (1910 - 1996)

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