morning walk and climb and run and

up the stairs through ruins and moss

to this unexpected voice of cooler highlands

swelling in the green damp of the peak

my heart bursting from the climb      i stop

listen      the bagpipe drone breathing with me

birds trilling in counter-melody     overripe

figs dropping a slow tabor thud to ground

the old battery rumbles in military dreams

that its war was not lost      its walls not

overwhelmed as now with sound      dreams

its rotting concrete into castle stones     warm

hearths lit and tended      a murmur of voices

and music that lifts the boots only to dance