The Hinds

Kathleen Jamie

Walking in a waking dream

I watched nineteen deer

pour from ridge to glen-floor,

then each in turn leap,

leap the new-raised

peat-dark burn. This

was the distaff side;

hinds at their ease, alive

to lands held on long lease

in their animal minds,

and filing through a breach

in a never-mended dyke,

the herd flowed up over

heather-slopes to scree

where they stopped, and turned to stare,

the foremost with a queenly air

as though to say: 'Aren't we

the bonniest companie?

Come to me,

You'll be happy, but never go home.'