The summit of the old, high-winding drovers' road between Arrochar and Inveraray in Argyll justified the fanciful name which gives the title to this atmospheric little poem. The modern replacement road is itself sufficiently impressive in spring or summer, let alone the depths of winter.
Marion McCready's piece comes from the latest issue of Poetry Scotland, the admirable broadsheet of new writing, published by Diehard at the Callander Press at a bargain price of £1. As always, it contains lively, original material. -- Lesley Duncan
THE REST AND BE THANKFUL
On the rest we lie
back on tarmac eyeing up
the winter sky: Pleiades, Plough, Orion.
Drive. The Milky Way suspends
above the hollow glen, high
high up the Drover's Road. Bend
into its curves, take no thought for the morrow
just drive. The highway kneels before us
and the windscreen is riddled with galaxies
strewn across the rotunda night.
Tonight there is no loch, no Firth of Clyde
smack into a beach wall, just a pumpkin moon
and the Glasgow road carved from a mountainside.
I LOOK AT THE SKY TOO, BUT NOT FROM THE TARMACADAM,
STARS ARE BUT STARS, BUT I WISH I HAD'M.
WHEN THE MOON APPEARS I FEEL GOOD.
THEN I'M OUT OF THE WOOD.
I CAN SING A LOONY TUNE.
WHEN RYANAIR GOES TO THE MOON
I HOPE IT'S SOON.
I LOOK AT THE SKY TOO, BUT NOT FROM THE TARMACADAM,
STARS ARE BUT STARS, BUT I WISH I HAD'M.
WHEN THE MOON APPEARS I FEEL GOOD.
THEN I'M OUT OF THE WOOD.
I CAN SING A LOONY TUNE.
WHEN RYANAIR GOES TO THE MOON
I HOPE IT'S SOON.
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