Days in the Highlands which defy man’s laws,
where stark landscapes are steeped in power
and nature’s megalithic mountains steam roll
with brutal beauty the edifices of my mind

From hostile hills I travel to the hostile city
of glass skyscrapers and glass souls
Whirring alpine winds become whirring car engines
and whirring ambitions revving in my heart

My internal clock, ticking ominously, reads
27 years, 8 months, 17 days old GMT,
so I race around in order to put the brakes on
and accelerate with the aim of slowing down

This man-made wilderness of brick and mortar
– an archipelago of urban morasses –
is one large stopwatch, each person an axle
or corroded cog or rusty mechanism within

So farewell to a wild free Scottish realm
where jagged peaks jut before me like a choppy sea
rippling outwards with unfathomable depth,
waves of infinitude lathering the temporal