Scotland Waits For Me Poem by Paul Reed

"What would the world be, once bereft
Of wet and wildness? Let them be left,
O let them be left, wildness and wet;
Long live the weeds and the wilderness yet."

From ‘Inversnaid' by Gerald Manley Hopkins

Scotland waits for me
Knowing not where I have gone
On my travels on land and sea
Away from her and my memories
Frozen in time;

She cradles the heather to her breast
And flies from her mountain tops
Of craggy outcrops and eagles nest
Where the high winds blow
Without answer;

My mind is filled with her
Her lochs and wild ravines
Her loving of me a blur
Of youth and sunny days
But still she waits.