Bog and Braid

In mist-wrapped dawns where the curlew cried,

Across the moor so wild and wide,

They walked with tools on shoulders worn—

The peatfolk of the upland morn.

Boots sank deep in sodden ground,

Where silence held a haunting sound.

Their breath rose white, the heather stirred,

And not a single word was heard.

With spade and sleán, they cut the earth,

The fuel that warmed their fires and hearth.

Dark bricks of turf in tidy rows,

Stacked ‘neath skies where the north wind blows.

A back bent low, a steady hand,

A craft passed down across the land.

Each slab of peat, a season’s keep,

To guard the home when snow lay deep.

The bog gave slow, reluctant yields,

Its history locked in sodden fields—

A thousand years of root and rain,

Now burned to chase the cold again.

They were not rich, nor known by name,

No marble marked their work or flame.

But in the smoke that rose each night,

Lived all their grit, and quiet might.

So toast the peatfolk, long since passed,

Who shaped the fire that held the past.

Their hands are gone, the bog remains,

Still whispering old, ancestral strains.