On The Road To The Isles Poem by Malcolm Evison

Numbed by this alien terrain,
where truth spells a montony
of rain, we ride entombed

towards our Shangri-La.

Each fresh horizon
taunts the tired eye,
echoes the fretful sense

of hours gone by.

A weariness pervades
this no-man's land.

*****

Go West young man!
We make our final fling -

turning to be embraced
by fire. The mist resorbed,
light's pan-theophany

revives a blighted mind.

Rainbows and thunderfall engrave
their echoes on the boundary
of our wonderment, refresh

a dormant sense.
The sky line seethes -
sun sanctified.

*****

White, searing, the unseen sun
burns from the core
of mountains, transforms

a shroud of haze
into a panoply of light.
Rocks swallowed by, still seize

upon this shimmering -
a spectral residue
of more torrential times.