WEBVTT

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"Shirakawa."

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"Guided towards Shirakawa
through green Perthshire glens,

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if you're traveling in
the north country fair

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where the wind hangs
heavy on the borderline.

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John Waite, Girl from
the North Country.

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People ask us the way to
the Shirakawa barrier.

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And we reply, 'Take it easy.

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The Shirakawa barrier
is everywhere.'

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The map's watershed
is Shirakawa,

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reading the names of
burns running southeast,

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allts running northwest.

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Comrie's confluence of
Lednock, Earn, and Ruchill

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is Shirakawa, Edo to the east
and the orderly market town,

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oku to the west.

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In twilight, deer,
pheasants lacking

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road sense, tumbledown gardens
and close-ranked pines.

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Any wee road where your fingers
brush meadow sweet verges

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is Shirakawa.

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When you let the wheel turn
through the glen with all

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your attention on the minor
dramas of passing places,

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any one-street village with
shops stocking fancy goods

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and their butchers that sells
a new brand of oat cakes

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is Shirakawa.

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Any clicked latch of a gate
that makes a space for things

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to come is Shirakawa.

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My Shirakawa is an evening
walk from the square, Dunira.

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From behind tilted
pine, a last ray of sun

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fans over the square.

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It lifts my shadow
through the wooden rails,

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fetches it far ahead of me.

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Under the great Sycamore, a
darker green cools the evening.

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The deer browse mist,
floating lifelessly,

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seeming to sense my looking.

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Lifting their heads
then leaping the fence,

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they fade into the wood beyond
shafts of light that pick out

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wisps on the dying branches.

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Saint Fáelán's
hill is Shirakawa.

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Fáelán, that dumb saint,
that splendid mute,

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was never one to set himself
over the higher peaks.

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Clamber up the scree field
fringed by toxic foxgloves

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or go by stone crop scars
snug in veins of dry rock.

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I lie among bluebells,
feet pointing east.

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The saint's seat looks north
towards the confluence.

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I aim my arm down the glen
of pebbles, glen Artney,

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along the ridge of Bealach
Ruadh, the red pass,

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to the picturesque crown of
Mor Bheinn, the big hill."

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