Loch Glass

A wild and lonely area of Easter Ross on a lovely autumnal day! The loch is incredibly low, the sun was shining and the Hawker in the pool was still laying!

'Scotland small? Our multiform, our infinite Scotland small?
Only as a patch of hillside may be a cliche corner
To a fool who cries 'Nothing but heather!' Where in September another
Sitting there and resting and gazing round
Sees not only heather but blaeberries
With bright green leaves and leaves already turned scarlet,
Hiding ripe blue berries; and amongst the sage-green leaves
Of the bog-myrtle the golden flowers of the tormentil shining;
And on the small bare places, where the little Blackface sheep
Found grazing, milk worts blue as summer skies;
And down in neglected peat-hags, not worked
In living memory, sphagnum moss in pastel shades
Of yellow, green and pink; sundew and butterwort
And nodding harebells vying in their colour
with the blue butterflies that poise themselves delicately upon them,
And stunted rowans with harsh dry leaves of glorious colour
'Nothing but heather!'- How marvellously descriptive! And incomplete!'
Hugh MacDiarmid