The Empty Land (After the Highland Clearances)

The land is empty.

The wind blows,

The mist swirls,

Peat stained rivers flow through the glens,

Dominated by ancient mountains who witnessed the changes,

That made this the empty land.

Wrecked crofters' cottages litter this wilderness,

Roofless, with fallen walls,

Containing only the memories of the past,

Of life before the empty land.

Now the bleating sheep replace those human sounds.

Deer roam where children once laughed and played.

And grouse feed on heather waiting their August fate.

These all paid more to the ruling elite,

Than the crofters' labours could ever achieve.

Their greed made this the empty land.

The diverse flora and fauna followed the humans,

Being driven from the mountains and glens.

The grazing and burning destroyed their rich multiplicity,

Helped by the gamekeepers, the purveyors of death and extinction,

Weep for the empty land.

Its solitude exists due to the the clearances.

The few benefiting from the misery of many.

Their greed left us this wet-swampy desert,

Their bequest to those yet to come.

So weep for the empty land, 

And remember the past.

(November 2010)