Crofter's Cottage

A cottage thatched and whitewashed

hugs the blowing grass billowed land,
like an old ewe sheltering
from the raw prying winds.

Coarse rain faded ropes, knotted
around large heavy stones, are thrown
across the weather-stained thatch,
sea anchors straining in the wind..

Scattered humps of moss-grown stone,
scaly with mustard-yellow lichen,
mark the vanished homes of
long forgotten neighbours.

A soft blue wash of low mountains
float above the cold grey reach
of the endless pewter horizons.
Huge skies hang overall.

Ominous as the wrath of flinty
unforgiving Calvinist gods;
the eerie spectral cry
of the curlew haunts the moor.

John Curtis
Art Angie Lathem