The Croft Ruins somewhere between Aviemore and Kingussie

Keira Smith (U.S.)

My broken stone outlines stretch out into unkempt grass,
(An imprint of what once was)
Into the soft ground.
I am weighed by time and measured by grief.
I am nestled in the bosom of overgrown trees and ancient hills.
Kept safe like a secret,
Hidden as a scar you’re not proud of,
Yet I am many in my grey marrings on green and purple canvas.
I hold the traipsing of rubber-clad feet in and out of my chest cavity.
(How long my hearth has been cold)
They clamber over my carcass.
The bright colours of raincoats and welly-boots
Contrast with the dullness of my being.
Sometimes the soft patter of paws,
A child’s laughter
Or a familiar gait step across my threshold.
If water could be pulled from stone, I’d weep.
My granite flesh scorched black by flames long burnt out,
Or ripped apart by hands and tools.
(No one remembers anymore)
My bones melting into the land with moss,
Worn smooth by wind and weather of –
How many years?
(No one remembers anymore)
I was a home once.
I’m little more than a pile of stones now.
A marker, a gravestone, to the families who fled from these hills
Never to return, to build me back anew.