Two Piece Reclining Figure (1959) by Henry Moore

The Henry Moore 'site', at Glenkiln, Dumfriesshire

There's a few layers to this blip.
I had intended to take a photo of the King and Queen to go with the Herbert poem below (and I have added a link to a photo of the sculpture when it was in situ). This was a lovely and unexpected setting for significant sculptures set in the natural environment. I have been a few times before and was looking forward to seeing it again but one of the Henry Moore's was stolen in 2013 and as a result most of the others were removed for safe keeping. I was deeply saddened to see a pile of rubble where the King and Queen had been.

We always called this the Henry Moore 'site' because we wild camped here and had the place to ourselves with our very own Henry Moore sculpture as a backdrop. This wonderful sculpture is still in place but is a fibre-glass replica that moves and changes as you walk around it. A very evocative piece.

Henry Moore 'site'

At Henry Moore 'site'
Our little secret camping
Place of the past now.

I sit here alone
With disorientated
Recalling of then ...

Old photos show smiles
And a relaxed summer pose
We did not know - then

Thankfully we were
Ignorant of now, and we
Lived then, as if now

These figures - frozen
Misshapen and grief gripped for
Loss of King and Queen

Rubble now lies where
The King and Queen ruled the loch
What was once, is lost.

The photos we took
Were lost as soon as taken
Now is then - what is now?

I sit on rubble
Crying for loss of their love
Which is cast in stone.

King and Queen (1952-3) by Henry Moore


The King and Queen of Dumfriesshire - W.N.Herbert

The King and Queen of Dumfriesshire sit
in their battery-dead Triumph, gazing ahead
at an iced-over windscreen like a gull rolled flat.
They are cast in bronze, with Henry Moore holes
shot in each ohter by incessant argument;
these are convenient for holding her tartan flask,
his rolled-up Scotsman. The hairy skeleton
of a Border terrier sits in the back window,
not nodding. On the back seat rests
their favourite argument, the one about
how he does not permit her to see the old friends
she no longer likes and he secretly misses;
the one which is really about punishing each other
for no longer wanting to make love.
The argument is in the form of a big white bowl
with a black band around it hand-painted with fruit.
It has a gold rim, and in it lies
a brown curl of water from the leaking roof.
Outside, the clouds continue
to bomb the glen with sheep, which bare
their slate teeth as they tumble,
unexpectedly sneering.
The King and Queen of Dumfriesshire sit
like the too-solid bullet-ridden ghosts
of Bonnie and Clyde, not eating their
tinned salmon sandwiches, crustless, still
wrapped in tinfoil, still in the tupperware.
They survey their domain, not glancing at
each other, not removing from the glove compartment
any of the old words they have always used,
words like 'twae', like 'couthy', like 'Kirkudbright',
which keep their only threat at bay: of separation.