Semi-clad but for a single cloth;
Beauty high, her fingers soft
Drew wide trails through the heather parts
That cold air had held aloft
Scraping the air just abin them.

In bare feet beauty spun,
Cold the peat between yon toes
As the dark Cuillin ridge with sundown
Upwardly grows, marking the land
In sudden shadows

A crystal sound, that which then occurred;
Sharper, aye, than a pin drop
As the first of those toes tapped the water
And sunk
Breaking the silence and the rocks

--

And who was I to judge that day?
Filthy form the sodden rock
On slopes which I dropped, seeking
One 'for two- in that peat reek,
An earthy smell for sure,
My burning limbs and smoky blood
Carried of down stream towards beauty.

Yet I made no sound as I slowed
In the mooring black reeds,
Gently wavering in my stiff body
My head rebounds the softer rocks
An' returned again; wooden like a boat
The sound; and the sinews of muscle
Creaking like the rope.

--

Hoofs damp, the bodhran bone on my tightening heart;
The heavy breath of rider and horse
Upon she now, as I swore it was only a pulse
Far off and with no actual force
To worry and to steal from loneliness.

In bare feet, by boots, now stood
Beauty on the hankered grass of pebbles
The unfocused mass of hills to the left and right
As this laden body, in boots, trembles
As he cuts the iron-cast shadow

To the north, Sgurr a Ghreadaidh, to complete the stage;
And five sodden oak trees, a stave
Under weight of the failing moon;
And slowly,
Slowly all is woken, and dawn.

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