Always the first hard run to the scouring of Spring snow
and my lacking lungs, piston torn legs
dragging fire and larch forest, newly greened or
rust raw with the old, cold mud to the first top, where
razor chested and trig-point rough, I follow a wild sweep

East, to falling fishing fleets, fresh fields, lowland laws a plenty,
and huddled, smarting from the new northern blows are pits
rigs and jigs, fitters yards, towns with gowns until sun pecked
Angus and the low white menace of winter still smoked in
blazer-blue glens, where moors burn like villages at war.

Then frozen tyre tracks, frigid in heavey peat splattering jumps
of iced volcanic dykes and down, and up, at the turn where
lost walls meet and I always meet you laughing,
arms wide in a sharp circle of tides and suns,
spinning like a compass with your eyes fixed on home.

So to the summit where hands on knees are to stand aching
and panting warm in the ancient ring of fire,
sun drenched with sleet on the horizon over a pale sky pulled
tight around your shoulders as you turn and I follow
blowing Spring through my sea chapped, hill smoked hands.