The Perthshire poet Jim C Mackintosh (who you can read a bit more about here), wrote a poem this year especially for the Cateran Yomp called Griz An Cateran. The Yomp (a military term for a long-distance march) takes place every year around the Cateran Trail and is organised by The Soldiers Charity.
Jim waiting to go on stage
They describe the event as “an epic adventure challenge. Teams of 3-6 people take on 64 miles (gold) in 24 hours across the rugged terrain of the Scottish wilderness. There is also a 36 (silver) or a 22 (bronze) mile option. Whatever distance you choose, the Yomp will test you to your limits both physically and mentally. It will also be an unforgettable weekend with your friends and colleagues, sharing the exhilarating experience and making memories to last a lifetime, whilst raising money for soldiers, veterans and their families.”
Cateran’s Common Wealth was delighted to be able to play a small part in the creation of this poem by suggesting to the Soldiers Charity that they commission Jim to write a poem to celebrate this magnificent event.
A packed tent listening to Jim’s poem
Here’s Jim sharing it for the first time on the 9th June, the evening before the Yomp, to a crowded registration tent of more than 800 people! You can also read the poem below.
Griz An Cateran
Raise your sights!
The mountains are awake, waiting, all belligerent,
arms folded tightly across their bracken chests.
They stare you down as if to say C’mon then!
Impress us! Let’s see what you’re all made of.
What is this vision of unplanned glories you offer to the Gods?
Word of your adventures has reached the Caterans
and Cam Ruadh relishes the bounty, the pickings
of luminous clad explorers who stray from their folly.
The snow riven burns of winter, expose raw flesh
of granite and of polished skin, blistered blue and
bleak through the peat bog knit, unravelling slow
to be mistaken for tears of mocking enthusiasm.
The rustle of silver birch at first deafening
then lost amidst your efforts to breathe, your
drum beat support mute in the deafening thud
of a befuddled heart pleading hard on your ribs.
Raise your sights!
because in the half lit grub the only voice you will hear
is your own in a sober whisper devoid of bravado snagged
on the branch where the crows will peck at your ambition
as if to say What were you thinking when you signed on?
Are you dreaming of a warm bed yet before Diarmid
reaches out from a gap in the thin, moss light where
his tomb elevates beyond the mizzle, to nod knowingly
and mark your passing by with a cold fingered cross
leading you to where the wind silvers your thoughts away
and fills the void with answers with no questions
like the grouse disturbed in a fusillade of wing snap
and its voice lands in your ears Go back Go back
Raise your sights!
for your story, your true cause needs to be told.
In all of you, that core of meaning must be exposed
so when the wind drops, and you sit by the Shee Water
doubting yourself, waiting for a fresh delivery of breath
for a moment, linger by its bustling mystery, reflecting
its intent with a gathering of words, and across it
a skim of the Cateran’s history will dance quietly past
in and out of your brief yet growing respected presence
and the faces of your own warriors will appear about you.
The lines of their stories merging with the slow ripples
where your cupped hands break the surface but still clear:
their berets, their uniforms – their whole rig will become you.
Raise your sights!
For there it is. The answer to those mocking, muscle bound
mountains, whose only intention was to expose your fears,
and to echo the loose doubts escaping from your heads.
There it is, the only answer. You’re here for your own warriors.
And then behind you, the bark of a puzzled old ewe
will break the respected hush with a call to arms.
All that you need think of is reduced to the lasting reflection
of faces strengthening you, urging you on to the finish.
The mountains will still mock, still posture but respectfully
and will seem less of a threat. Their stony arms unfolding,
lighter, almost welcoming. The scree path will tighten,
where the cold finger on your shoulder has let you go
and will guide you onwards with your back to the slopes
where Griz an Cateran fades irrelevant, surrendered where
this ancient noble landscape widens into a smile knowing
the tales of the brave in your heart will bring you safely home.
Jim C. Mackintosh