Writers' Corner

Welcome to our Writers’ Corner!

Enjoy reading the poetry and prose below.

Please feel free to send us a piece that you have composed and it will be considered for inclusion here.

Happy writing!

Highland Spree

City tenements and traffic queues are left behind.

In turn, hedgerows and furrowed fields give way to thickets and lofty mountains.

 

Cattle huddle as the sun goes down.

A wild cat prowls, eyes momentarily gleaming before it disappears.

On a ridge, a monarch stands resolute, eyes alert 'neath its battle crown.

 

Cottages, a few shops, a church, all inanimate in the town on the moor.

What concerns the souls it shelters?

National politics and sports results?

Or fund-raising for the local school, or a gap in elderly healthcare or who kissed who at Maggie's wedding?

 

A solitary inn serves the local game and brew.

Trim cyclists in striking multi-coloured jerseys quench their thirst, sate their hunger and plan tomorrow's leg.

Sturdy youths uproariously celebrate victory at shinty, forgetting their wounds for a while.

Others nose the water of life and avidly share hunting yarns each one bidding to out-do the other.

 

Our road winds upwards past imposing villas refashioned as holiday homes.

Through a gate, up steep steps, our host beckons, a log fire crackles.

 

Tomorrow may bring an amble in the glen, sheep retreating in our path, spied by a buzzard circling high above in a carefree sky.

Or a wild mushroom hunt in dappled golden sun.

Or an energising splash in an icy peat-hued burn.

 

But this evening, corks pop, conversation flows and a traditional stew is served of pheasant, hare and apricot.

A Highland welcome is found at Netherwood!

 

by Gordon Ritchie, August 2021