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  • A Cairn
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A Cairn

Gael Turnbull

As by barren trackway
on a mountain crest
with view of scree and corrie,
ridge and col,
a traveller might pause,
take bearings, cast
in tribute to record:
“A man came here, went on,
left common token, shared
with those who went before
and shall come after.”


Gael Turnbull

from There Are Words (Shearsman, 2006)

Reproduced by permission of Jill Turnbull.

Tags:

climbing mountains signs transience
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Gael Turnbull1928 - 2004

Gael Turnbull was a poet and medical practitioner whose work ranged from prose poetry and collage poems to inventive ‘poem-objects’, all expressing a ‘delight in language and in the possibilities of utterance’.
More about Gael Turnbull

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