Hands

The  bracken turns in
like a clawed hand, brittle and dun.
The  land is a carpet of wan brown,
sodden  and dark
as the brain behind the craftsman's hands
inserts stone strata
to support the blasted granite
at the side of the road
that will outlast him.

Our  time of staying will go,
the wheel will rise
roadways  empty
and  silence             ;'
greet the curlew calling
over  the moor.

The  land will endure
when  we have finished trying
to erase it.

My   eyes may love its lemon-iines
its floods of white and blue
but  eyes do not last
and  hands can do no  more than
they  have done
in fashioning the artefacts
that make  us human.

That  pylon will stand and rust
long  after its builders' bones
are  dust

and  silence will win
in and  through
the  unpolluted air
stirring the bracken to straighten,
the  land to dry and green.
                                      s M Scott
                                      Flat 3/1, 14 Lyndhurst Gardens
                                      Glasgow  G20 6QY

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