The Old Woman of the Moors Returns the Call
by Neile Graham
—travels from the Hebrides to Haida Gwaii— She would say she knows this shore —she knows shore— but here the sea stacks are raw, toothing up with their harum scarum fringe of trees. Sky is tender and familiarly full of rain—the weather is slow, but that is all: the standing crowd are trees thick in no arrangement —denser, fuller, no moor between— so tall...taller than old Lewis' hills. The beach-landed ones are the colour of stone, weather-rubbed —but not stone. Trees— how did she think she could come here? She feels so small and old, so round —smoothed, so tamed— what's with all these trees? Folk here build with wood, buildings rise then fall to rot—then are built anew. At home they know how to build one thing for thousands of years. Carve stone, not wood. They know what a cairn is. Most rocks here are so small she couldn't stand one up on a bet. They're raw, so fresh enough to cut herself on. Here the abundance grows and grows. Burgeoning. Boiling with growth. Blasting moss leaves needles cones, seeds bursting— It's enough to make an old woman swim the long way home till she finds her low islands —the slow soft rolling green— O she goes back to lay herself down again on the empty old moors. —Here there is rest— despite the restless weather. Unceasing waves, rocky shores, not fir-ed but furred. Land speaks more carefully here, greenly blanketing the history rampaging deep inside its ancient peace—
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