Settlement

by Robin Munro

Across the Balnakailly Burn
from the old Wood of Rue,
the Farm of the Forest
is a rickle of broken stones
freckled with lichen.

Outlines of lives.
A mother’ mother sat here
in her final year,
a grandchild in her first.

So many might have been our fathers
went. Bracken in their stead.
Words and photographs.
Interpretation.  Recreation.

Are there, in the old dog’s scenting,
any diluted traces of the vanished?
Duty bound, he adds his information.

Neither of us able to foretell
what of us remains
in this or any other land.