A cairn is a human-made pile (or stack) of stones. The word cairn comes from the Scottish Gaelic: càrn (plural cairn). Cairns have been and are used for a broad variety of purposes, from prehistoric times to the present.
I’m walking the mountains in low cloud,
the mist descends. I can’t see beyond doubt.
All the senses that I started with,
have too long ad libbed.
I can barely see further than my next step,
finding it hard to remember,
what steps I felt before I left.
I can just make out a dark shape,
this big figure with a shadow of a cape.
It begins to emerge from the gloom,
the first thing I’ve seen,
my messenger of good news.
I get closer and closer and it rises and rises.
This stern figure, that keeps on climbing
and it’s such a relief not to be alone,
except for this big pile of stones.
Happy to have reached it.
I have reached it at last.
It is my watcher, my guardian,
custodian of unmarked paths.
When the mist rolled through,
and the snow fell my way,
it tells me I am not lost.
Nor alone.
And that many others have passed this way.
