The dark land of the farm lies buried under snow
Glittering like mica, black trees in the sun
Cast long blue shadows
Kesson country, where Jessie Grant McDonald
Born in a Highland workhouse
Came, via a Skene orphanage,
Cornhill Asylum and marriage
To drudge as a cottar’s wife
Winter has made for the earth
A quilt of frost, bare but beautiful
Needing nor seeking any ornamentation
A lone bird trills in a thorn
It is peaceful as the grave
After the cries of troubled souls
In the locked wards of the town
After the squalid grunts of her mother’s
Clients, coupling in an Elgin slum
The dark lands by Fyvie, empty and cool
Lay in her mind like a balm, an outstretched virgin
Untouched, pristine and calm
This poem has not been translated into any other language yet.
I would like to translate this poem