(My favorite poem, thoroughly edited and revised, 3/1-6/12) 

Years have passed and vanished like smoke since last we tramped 
Across the meadows that lay beneath the swirling mists of Glennoch Fell.
Miles we wandered then, just two of us, up and down the gentle hills
Of heather and bracken, hands joined, lolling past each brook
And childish whim, two innocents, laughing, loving, living,
Through the fog that seemed to skip and dance forever
Across the Highland moor. (Yes, and such a wonder I'm still here
To write this verse, and you to read it, what with all the hell
And heartache this fell place wrung us through across the years!)

Do you remember those twisty, stunted apple trees behind
The house, loaded every autumn with bushels of hard,
Rusty nuggets of sweetness, their boughs bent nearly double
From the everlasting wind? And standing on my shoulders,
Light as a rail you were then, you could just pluck the fruit
From the very top branch. I doubt very much we should try that
Nowadays! But who could forget your mum's fresh made Bannock cakes,
Scalding tea, and a few of those hard sweet apples--
What a feast they were then, so many hard times ago!

But ah, such times they were, and such unvarnished children we,
On those few days of clean white sunshine, running barefoot through
The oat grass and singing as high and long and loud as voice could reach--
And you were always better! But old times turn to new times,
And they in turn go gray. So I fell for one, and you another,
And we left drear Glennoch Fell. Children came, and brightened us
With their tears and laughter. But they grew and left, as must be so,
And seldom knew the simple joys we shared so very long ago,
Two red topped kids drifting across the Scottish moor.

And so life passed, one day trudging into the next, wrapped in toil,
Cloaked in troubles, yet sprinkled with sugary moments of gladness forever.
But our mournings came, and we laid to rest those who'd shared our lives
And joys and silver hair! Who'd have thought that bent and gray,
We'd finally share a hearth--a life of memories behind us,
And what trove of rarest treasures still ahead? And who better than you,
O dear one of my childhood, to walk hand in hand beside me,
As in those misty days of yet unfading childhood, two old horses
Heading for the barn as we return at last to Glennoch Fell?