The Old Way

It is not where I lead, it is where you follow,

these paths seem to say.

Not me talking, but the wind

I bend in sympathy with,

like that holly, like that oak,

hoping this route has a place

in mind to end;

fork in the path being the same

as choice in the heart.

Paths in unkempt places that wend,

seemingly unbidden,

 leading to lose the wanderer,

playing games with the

back of beyond,

(or back of Baluff,

as the Angus saying went).

Drove road and saint’s way,

trodden contours so convoluted

you’d think it would have driven

the man or woman who made them mad.

Waysides verdant because of beasts’

manure they brought this way,

transhumance being the land’s

lost heart beat,

resting places bookmarked

by stone crosses where pilgrims chanted.

These intersections in heather hardly

to be traced in the modern age,

from the illicit still to evasive paths

unknown to excise men.