Rowan trees, autumn 2018, in Inshriach Forest, Cairngorms National Park. (That's Loch Insh in the distance.) The autumn colours were fantastic this year, perhaps because of all the sun in the summer.
A year later I wrote a poem, loosely inspired by the walk that resulted in this image... here it is:
ROWAN
I went out.
I went out walking, I walked the hours
I reached the rock, scrambling, sky-reaching
I walked the sky, the searching sky
I swam the forest, the ferny depths
Pines blue and green, tall straight and standing.
In the blue greenness
Stags stand roaring, roar running,
By bracken bent breaking, brightening
With autumn’s yellow yellowing.
I see you -
Right red upright,
curly-toed, bold berried,
marching leaves, rank on rank
climbing upward, pioneer
Cluster-trunk, berry-clump
cliff-climbing, witch-warning,
warn-witching, bold-berried.
You
were what I found
I swim home through the evening, darkening, back to the start
There are Rowans by my door.
Antonia Kearton
Sept 2019
It's also on the Shared Stories Cairngorms tumblr page, at https://sharedstoriescairngorms.tumblr.com/post/189148699819/rowan