The Loch of the Green Corrie
by Andrew Greig
We came to know it, a little.
It kept its best fish hidden
under glassy water, behind silver backing
of the long day’s clouds.
We cast and retrieved by that mirror
till the Green Corrie reflected only
three bodies of light,
filling and emptying themselves.
That place hooked us by the heart.
We were landed and released.
Now something of us reclines among those hills
and the chuckle of its water
runs among the world.
This poem is taken from Andrew Greig’s book ‘At The Loch Of The Green Corrie’ which is a delightful account of a four day fishing trip with two companions to a small loch under Glas Bheinn in Assynt. The trip was conceived as a homage to the poet Norman MacCaig who, just before he died in 1996, told Greig that an unnamed lochan, christened informally the Loch of the Green Corrie, was his favourite place on earth. MacCaig had a lifelong affinity for Assynt and Greig’s account of how he located the place and fished there is used as a vehicle for musings on what makes Assynt special and the nature of poetry. Poem and words contributed by David Underdown.