Andy Allan
Walking in White Darkness by Andy Allan
A vague outline of trees is
shadowy, smudged and broken.
Fresh flakes fall,
relentlessly tumbling
through frozen emptiness,
cascading into grey gloom
and silence.
Heavy boots crunch iron
wind-swept ground.
At field’s edge, rhythm slows
in deepening drifts of white,
tired feet scrunch the
crumbly crust, sink deep
into soft numb cold;
but struggle on once more.
The rhythmic rub and rasp
of tired legs ploughing,
swishes through frosty air,
through easing flake-fall.
Overhead, above bare boughs,
wispy clouds clear to show
a satin slice of haloed moon,
its pale, soft light diffused to
bathe my worn and bleary eyes.
Andy's web site is at www.aeallan.com
Andy writes fiction and poetry and spent his working life in schools. He is a native of Strathspey and currently lives in Kintessack, which is on the edge of Culbin Forest on the Moray Firth. He has been a writer, on and off, all his life, with his first novel, which remains unpublished, having been written in the 1970s. His first poems were published in a Regency Press anthology in 1970.
The Highland landscape and wildlife are significant features in a number of his poems, which have been widely published in magazines, anthologies and on-line. He has also been a prize-winner in a number of competitions. Andy has read on local-radio, at numerous festivals and other venues. A highlight appearance was reading at Celtic Connections in Glasgow in 2015.
More recently, his pamphlet collection, Breath of Dragons, was published by award-winning specialist poetry publishers, Indigo Dreams in 2015. A special illustrated and limited edition of Doric poems entitled, Life’s a Sair Fecht, was published by Cat’s Whiskers, in 2017.
His most recent collection, Within the Slide of Wind, has only just been published (end of November, 2018), again by Devon’s award-winning specialist poetry publishers, Indigo Dreams. Although no Doric poems feature in this new collection, Andy is also a prize-winner and a published writer in the Doric of Strathspey.
His outlook on life reflects his highland upbringing. He draws inspiration from our landscape, the natural world, Celtic myth and like all of us, from life in general. He is currently working on an epic novel-length fantasy/mythic story written in verse.