Summit Cairn (a poem by Syd Scroggie)
Summit Cairn
We are the kind that climb and, climbing, know
Why man must mount the scree to stand, sleet-stung,
Where cold the first, clear freshets tumbling flow
And, corrie-cradled, hinds bring forth their young;
Why to the cloud-piled crags must upwards go,
Where in the bealach bare, frost-split, moss-hung,
Embed the ribs of dark and crusted snow
Old boulders grey by tilting Titans flung:
And why, aloft, where whistling buzzard flies
Must panting pause and, pausing, hope to see
Far more of magic than mere hope can dare;
Not little loch, not wind-wrenched rowan tree,
But all Time imaged in each instant there
And beauty past all thought beneath the skies.