Walking to Hawthornden

by Jim Miller

A magpie on a roof in Auchendinny
squawked at me, on foot, exploring.
A railway track had brought me here
down a long soft bed of dross and clay,
iron long gone, past deserted platforms
where willowherb waited for rain,
the rhythm of my feet steady as the wheels’,
across a viaduct over the brown whorls
of the North Esk’s shadowed underworld.

At the Dalmore paper mill, said a sign,
the last accident to stop work
fell twenty-seven days ago.
The young have pitbulls and brutal haircuts,
the old walk well-fed spaniels and recall
the last knell of pit boots, while the Army
fires a flare on the Pentlands, a single star
to swoop below its smoky mark.

Ben in his shop sells me Irn Bru
and Independence chocolate. Thus sugared,
on past the football pitch and crumbling towers,
with the late summer sun burning
on my shoulders – remember this heat
when winter comes – throwing my shadow forward
up the brae to Hawthornden.