Poem: ‘Aftermath’
Alasdair Maclean, 17 September 1981
That last summer a small stand of bracken leaped from the hillside into our pasture, clearing a four-foot cattle-proof sheep-proof fence. Father cast on the intruder a cold country eye. ‘Not on my bloody ground!’ he said. ‘I’ve seen the autumn land round here blaze with that stuff.’ Crofter and magician both, he passed his hand over the weed....