They endured a season
Of ice and silver swans.
Delicately the horses
Grazed among the snowdrops.
They traded for fish, wind
Fell upon crested waters.
Along their track
Daffodils lit a thousand tapers.
They slept among dews.
A dawn lark broke their dream.
For them, at solstice
The chalice of the sun spilled over.
The star was lost.
They rode between burnished hills.
A fiddle at a fair
Compelled the feet of harvesters.
A glim on their darkling road.
The star! It was their star.
In a sea village
Children brought apples to the horses.
They lit fires
By the carved stones of the dead.
A midwinter inn.
Here they unload their treasures.
--George Mackay Brown (1921-1996 ) Orkney-born poet, from Following a Lark, found at The Painted Prayerbook by Jan Richardson
Image: a Church in the Orkney Islands
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