Memories of Snow

The heat in Bearsden drove us north
in a stolen TESCO juggernaut
complete with walk-in, diesel-driven fridge:

chasing memories of glens
that danced at the slightest shift of light;
when ridges shimmied
in white lace after a summer squall
and moon-yellowed snow
embraced diamond-sharp black crags.

The juggernaut inventory?
mostly toasters and electric kettles,
frozen dinners to feed Falkirk,
months of peanut butter, baked beans for years,
clothes for decades, Christmas crackers
and would you believe,
nesting like illegal immigrants amongst flat-screen TVs,
several hundred Barbie Dolls.
There's no spade, hoe or potato seed.

Somewhere near Torridon.
on swaying roads the axle cracked,
leading a wavering line of oil
to a large black stain

where she now sits in the cab beseeching
the lid of the hill to fill with people;
dreading the silence when the fridge cuts out.
Not that we get many visitors these days:
stragglers who trade in dead news.
We feed them cauliflower-cheese TV meals.
They leave clutching a plastic sandwich pack
and a sticky Kit Kat.

She selects a bright new dress each week
and lays the Christmas crackers on empty fork lift pallets.
Here, stared at by Beinn Alligan,
who would have thought -
me decked-out in shorts and gaudy Caribbean shirt,
under this primary-coloured sky
dining on Argentinean corned beef, Costa Rican
tinned pineapple chunks topped with ice cream
sipping South African white wine from baked-bean-tin mugs.

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