Bog Myrtle & Peat

Should I thank the larks for coming back? Ten years ago, I would have laughed at the suggestion. They had no choice but to sing, and I marked the date of their return as if the appointment was set in stone. But I have lost so much that nothing is certain now, and feeling the weight of absence in these lengthening days, I’m impressed with a sense of gratitude. I know they do not have to come, and the fact is driven home because thousands don’t. And how different I felt when the birds rose up and sang for the first time in this expanding year; the contract’s no longer binding, and I can’t just walk home and say at some point late in the casual chat; “oh, did I tell you the larks are back”? They are the main event now; the focus of my undivided stare.

You’d think that loss would soften itself with time and repetition. Of course I look back to those days when I could rise at 5am and hear blackcock crowing from the hayfields. Lapwings turned and curlews sang as I split sticks for the stove and made coffee in the silent house. I didn’t even notice larks back then, and in the rush towards lambing and the movement of cows, a bright day would shine upon more interesting birds. I’d watch the for the grouse on the dyketops, and bounce with glee at the bark of ouzels. Even if I had known they’d soon be gone, I could not have loved them more dearly. 

There are people who measure wildlife in financial terms, and they work hard to gauge the price of “nature”. It’s a new philosophy of conservation, but it isn’t how love works; because I had a thousand pounds, and I now I have a ten pence coin. It makes no sense to care about small change when ruin’s upon you – but I grip that tiny disc with greater care than I ever held a bigger sum, knowing that it’s all that stands between me and nothing at all.

Out beyond the moss and the summer’s broken haggs, the hills look alive. At first light, I watch mist rise in rags from the folded lochs, and the mountains scored with snow. But it’s quiet now, and nothing stirs the cloud which used to breathe with birds. It’s a close approximation of warmth, and perhaps I’d never spot the shortfall if I had come to this place as a new man. When people say that it’s wonderful in Galloway, I agree insofar as it goes – but my guard is up and the defences heavily manned; I won’t be caught in the open again. So as I stand in the rain and hear larks which rise above me, I’m almost ready to yell an expression of gratitude – but frightened to look foolish in a place that’s come to this.