Einsames
Camp vor imposanter
Kulisse
Midges¹
¹
schottische Mücken
Midges.
The scourge of the west, the terror of the Highlands.
In
itself ´chust nothing at all´; meanbh chuileag, the tiny fly.
Wingspan
- 1,4 millimetres, but the numbers of them!
By
the hundred, and the thousand, lying and hatching,
and
up they rise to bite and suck and torment.
One
midge bite - nothing. Ten - a mere itch.
But
by the dozen, and the dozen every second,
flying
round your head, biting, drawing.
You
swat and kill one or two;
kill
a midge, as they say in Raasay,
and
a hundred come to the funeral.
You
swat and flail, clawing at your scalp,
cursing.
But
a cloud of them hangs about your head, fluxing, intangible.
They
land and walk and puncture.
They
seek the sweet, sweaty parts of you fizzog -
the
nostrils, at your hairline, in your brows ...
from
Midges by
Alasdair Roberts