Writer Kate Campbell has written a collection of poetry inspired by the area around the Whiteadder valley, some of which have been published.
‘She came the day they made their heart-cairn,
raised on the burnt heather,
and felt the rock warm beneath her hand.
We love it like she loved him, they said
finding her crouched on the whinstone,
hearing her pray, they told,
for the touch of his fingers
and a long ridgeline in sight.
And don’t they all say
how well she’s doing
and don’t they all tell
about the time he took woodpigeons
to the gamekeeper’s widow,
leaving them at the door at dusk
just as she liked it;
how he delivered her a tower
and was all year building it;
that she waited in it in the snow
and was all winter watching for him
through arching windows on all sides.
Now she fronts up with her hostess face
putting on her black glasses,
and twisting her dark hair.
Some days she goes down to the water to fish
in the evening again.
But they saw her first as she came out of the bracken
picking him in cottongrass and
scattering him on the hillside.’
© Kate Campbell 2011
Kate’s writing connects social history, nature and place.
