IN THE BIG PARK

What do you do if your Granny has been working all day and unavailable for play until 6.30 pm? Drag her out in the howling gale after dark to the 'big kids park' and scream madly as you go shooting down the muddy slide.

In the Big Park, is, of course, a poem by Sorley Maclean. Somewhere in this house I have a tape of him reading it aloud. I must find it, but maybe not tonight - I'm too tired! Here is the text:

The moon plays hide-and-seek
gliding among the clouds
the children chasing one another
among the stooks in the Big Park

A night in late autumn
when the Election was dimmer
and before the world was
hard straight sharp furrows

When no boy or girl knew
how many stooks were on the plain
every stook still mysterious
before the field was a bare expanse

The Election was not clear
to us in the Big Park.