Muir of Dinnet Endurance Ride
Steam off a hot horse and a drying road.
Heavy rain that dies away like a round of applause, leaving the air singing to a beat of dripping trees. Anxiously counting magpies, where is your wife?
Tiny purple flowers among the buttercups. Fireworks of yellow on the broom.
A red squirrel squashed on the tarmac. A rare red one, he should have lived.
Shot-silk silver birch bark flashing by us. Cattle jostling along the fence line, shitting and squelching. Clachnaben hunching wart-nosed in the distance.
The river makes him spook, burbling over some rocks. It’s only water and foam, but he sees a Kelpie.