The Fourth Sister Of Eskrigg And Other Poems

Book Week Scotland is nearly upon us, and as well as running around in my day job enticing teenagers to talk about books and convincing five year olds that voting for their favourite book is their constitutional right, a poem I’ve penned will be soaking up the wildlife at Eskrigg Nature Reserve all next week. This is part of a Scottish Book Trust and Muirhall Energy funded project where my local writing group worked with the writer, Eryl Gasper Dick of Curious Authentic Ink, to create nine poems on the theme of future and the natural environment. They are all placed around a 3km one way route at the reserve.

If you can’t face donning your wellies and firing up a flask of coffee to wander round the reserve in the wind and the rain (or you live too far away), here is my contribution. It was inspired by a row of trees at Eskrigg Nature Reserve nicknamed ‘The Four Sisters’ by visitors, and also by natural burials and their symbiotic relationship with trees that mark a grave. Sadly, The Four Sisters are no more, but poetry perpetuates their life.

 

The Fourth Sister of Eskrigg

She lies, naked and ashen. With nature and

by three trees: The Three Sisters of Eskrigg.

Her life was as demanding as a newborn’s cry, but

her death was as elusive as the Scarlet Pimpernel.

And as she sinks into the earth,

her toes root – grasping mulch then rock;

an anchor against storms.

Her body is wrapped in asperous bark where

lichen lounge and fissures part no secrets.

Her hair splays branches on which squirrels

scrabble and squabble over snatched nuts.

Her curls unfurl pea green leaves; umbrellas offering

shade for transitory toads from wood to pond.

Her immortelle – grass, bluebells and notes of musk.

The Earth has taken back what it first created,

for the circle of life must revolve and evolve.

But her future is the tree she always wanted to be:

to taste the life of the fourth to the three.

She’s become The Fourth Sister of Eskrigg.

(This poem is dedicated to Kelly)

            

Photo © Paula Gilfillan. All Rights Reserved.