The Mountains of Skye
The Mountains of Skye
The Black Cuillin Mountains of Skye
step off into the distance chanting,
“Step we gaily, on we go,
Heel for heel and toe for toe!”
And as they march uniformly forward
over 12 kilometres and 11 Munros of
sharpened, black-gabbro rock
shimmer and spangle in the early light.
It is June, and unusually hot!
The morning has been up early
serving a breakfast of sliced sunshine
and frothed cappuccino clouds.
Then suddenly, the morning’s lustre has curtsied
and moved swiftly away …something is coming….
something threatening and powerful.
The Black Cuillin Mountains know it,
the valleys and inhabitants know it
through changes in light, alterations in pressure
or perhaps a signal from a curl of a breeze
that had suddenly stopped curling.
All cease breathing and looked skywards!
Yes an immense storm has arrived,
a great kraken now rumbles the sky,
thrown up from the deep seas
to confront and to do battle!
It is here to dominate and pulverize,
It is here to mangle and strangle
the very life out of these majestic mountains
and its surrounding court.
The kraken isn’t here to pay homage;
it is here to cause destruction!
But the Black Cuillins are a match for any such storm,
these mountains have stood proud for 60 million years,
never flinching, never cowering…they know the game of life.
So they make their mark, crouch their stance….and wait.
Suddenly a thundered fist of rage
smashes into the Cuillins with immense potency
and soon a sharpened wind cuts across the slopes
cleaving and slicing at will.
Now torrents of metalled rain
pound in all directions, saturating the land,
flooding the ditches, deluging the slopes
while thunder and lightning orchestrate
attack after relentless attack.
For hours, the storm rips across the pummelled landscape
until eventually it is… just spent
and spills down the hills in a slide of defeat
to eventually slither lifelessly back into the sea.
The mountains and valleys survey the aftermath
noting the scars and disfigurements they bear:
fissures of rock, broken trees, torn flowers,
flooded ditches, smashed birds’ nests and more.
Then from all directions life creeps out
to acknowledge the invincibility of these ridges,
to offer respect to their cragged, ragged ruggedness.
And hauntingly, a golden eagle’s screech of a cry,
climbs the wet slopes as if to add its approval
however the Black Cuillin Mountains are up, on the march,
chanting and swaying to those favoured words:
“Step we gaily, on we go!”
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