Recently published in Northwords Now

Now in its tenth year, Northwords Now is still going strong (I hope)! and amazingly is still free. It's such a great read. I like the format and there are always plenty of poems, short stories and book reviews to satisfy prose and poetry lovers. Hope it remains in the Scottish literary scene for many decades to come.
This poem is published in the current issue and was written earlier this year during a holiday to one of our favourite places in the North West Highlands.

A Dead Lamb in Polbain

How long the lamb had lived,
how long its fleece sodden by the rain,
lent covering for its body lying by the wall,

while other sheep and lambs
ranged over the steep hillside,
opposite Tanera Mor,

only its mother knew.
And as she moved away to feed,
the farmer in his camouflage boiler suit,

stepped over the low stone wall
and kneeling beside the lamb,
tied its back legs together with twine.

As the lifeless animal was pulled gently
over stones, grass and reeds,
its mother followed in slow procession

across the fields, her lamb's only chance
to be with the flock.
When I next caught sight of the farmer

the lamb was gone,
its body to the sea-rocks, the crow-gods,
its skin to clothe a foundling.

Jane Aldous 2015.