On contemplating colour.

Your Facts of Bracken

Smothered, I see the mountains now
enduring coolly; occasional sheep do not eat it
but gather ticks from it into their ears.
It glows russet, casting its death already at the height
of summer: comes back green, like I do, year after year.

And you have recast Scotland for me,
where carcinogens become the only colours
I remember, the only texture of countless walks;
walks that now, I find, I can't recall.