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Ice on Loch Lomond a poem by Catriona Malan

(Photograph by Mike Taylor)

That was the winter the loch froze over

stealing reflections from the hills,

and laying its pale shawl on their shoulders.

Islands, feeling they were trapped,

huddled sullen in the cold as the wind

shaved the bracken of their skin.

But the postman skated that squeaking plain

sensing, beneath his blades,

The slow drift of sleeping powan,

bit icicles of breath from his moustache

hid red hands beneath his scarf and laughed

bit icicles of breath from his moustache

hid red hands beneath his scarf and laughed

later about how he had walked on water.

Catriona Malan

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