Ante Mortem (a poem by Syd Scroggie)
Ante Mortem
(The Capel Track from Glen Doll to Lochnagar)
I will attempt the Capel track
Old, stiff and retrograde
And get some pal to shove me on
Should resolution fade
For I must see black Meikle Pap
Against a starry sky
And watch the dawn from Lochnagar
Once more before I die.
The golden plover whistled there
Before the Fall of Man
And you can hear the brittle croak
Of lonely ptarmigan,
No heather there but boulders bare
and quartz and granite grit
and ribs of snow bleak, old and grey
As I remember it.
And if I do not make the top
Then sit me on a stone
Some lichen'd rock amongst the screes
And leave me there alone,
Yes leave me there alone to hear
Where spout and buttress are
The breeze that stirs the little loch
On silent Lochnagar.