Jenni Daiches' published poetry includes Mediterranean (1995), Smoke (2005), and contributions to many Scottish magazines. Her fiction includes Letters from the Great Wall (Luath, 2006). She writes on literary and historical subjects as Jenni Calder. Her most recent book is Frontier Scots: The Scots Who Won the West (Luath, 2009). She is currently president of Scottish PEN.
Isabella Bird in the Rocky Mountains
In the Sierra Nevada Isabella
rode alone out of the blazing discord
of the Truckee bars and brothels
into entrancing silence.
She rides in Colorado, where the sun
rasps the bare rock and a hurricane whips
from a cavernous sky. At twilight wild creatures stir,
bear and mountain lion and lynx.
Delicately out of the trees comes one-eyed
Mountain Jim, layers of ragged waistcoat
over his leather shirt, a knife in his belt,
a beaver pelt dangling paws from his saddle.
For a while she makes her home
in a cabin by Mirror Lake. Mountain Jim,
when sober, is a gentleman.
The sunrise dazzles every sense.
Alone again she rode to Denver,
the snow falling without wind, all life
in a shroud, no footprint or wheel track,
nature dumb and ominous.
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