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Scotland in October
by Carole Bugge


Scotland is a place of craggy hillsides
and boiling brooks
where boulders rise from rushing rivers
like bulky, grazing sheep
and swollen streams cut like arteries
through the sides of mountains
hills looming out of mist
thick as the wool of stiff-legged flocks in meadows
beneath the great nodding heads of the Three Sisters
peering through the gloom

Scotland is a country of ghosts,
pale riders galloping through fog,
singing dreams of battle songs
and midnight massacres in the glen

On this windy night
though I sit by a raging fire,
I hear the cry of murdered clans
echo across the wind –
swooping over rooftops
barking at my door
like a pack of angry dogs
I shiver and draw my chair
closer to the flame

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