County

**Tubthumper** · 28-Apr-09, 23:30

County
A sleepy lioness, Morven keeps one wary eye
On her playful Northern cub, romping innocent beside
A carrion-hungry world

Dunnet Head’s pugnacious chin thrust out
Facing down the endless aggression of Atlantic bully
While Stroma lurks, a half-sister thrown out of flagstone family
Forever pushed away, punished for some forgotten geological crime

Trees against the gunmetal dome of a side-to-side sky
Tortured, twisted arms stretch South begging relief
From North wind’s ceaseless bluster

The castle is a beacon, symbol of a civilisation
That showed its kindly stone face to those who would not strive
To follow the flock and who, as punishment, were displaced by one
Their strath now a vast, empty millstone for inheritors
Who must kill birds for their profit yet build paths for our pleasure

The rusting pleasure-steamer Dounreay is sinking by the bow
Once pride of the fleet, carrying us all to a cleaner, better future
Now, her crew pumping madly, she slips below the waves

Thurso, the old sailor, swims for salvation in the bar
Endlessly recycling tales of nuclear glory and horror
Unclear on the detail of what, or who, or why
But certain he played a major part in that famous victory

While poor spinster Wick yearns for the boats that once filled her harbour
When travellers gutted and moved on, leaving only a lingering scent of herring
Still she stands, waiting for the world to come around again

Flagstone dykes, ill-kept teeth bared in defiance
At the circling crows of poverty, ever-waiting to peck
At the roadkill of those who remain

Yet, tendrils of new growth spring up
Feasting on a compost of ambition and niche
Rare seedlings tended by nurserymen with an eye
To future harvests of oil or wind or tide

Synchronised white cheerleaders wave wildly
At another score for the green and the greedy
Wrestling the gale, feet pierced deep into peat-flesh,
Creating unseen gold from turn and turn and turn

The Groat summarises arrivals, departures
Our big hearts and small minds
Warriors and harlots; drink, drugs, driving
We gleefully follow our scumbags’ progress
As another layer is added to the sedimentary rock of our history

Our County breathes, in the movement of people
The steady inhale - exhale of growth and contraction
The coming of refugee, departure of disaffected native
Loss of gap-year daughter, return of our prodigal son

Fertile earth for growing and multiplying, dividing and dying