Mary Smith's celebration of the landscape of South-West Scotland is more than a litany of strange and beautiful names but a reminder of past and half-lost significances.

This poem can be found in her new collection, Thousands Pass Here Every Day (Indigo Dreams Publishing, £7.99).

LOST IN TRANSLATION

Once, people spoke their maps.

Everyone knew where lay

rough moorland of the perilous region,

the hill of the eagle,

mountain of awesome grandeur.

Once people were wary of the crag

of the storm-swept range, made pilgrimage to

the hill of the memorial pile or that other,

above the hollow of the warrior's tomb.

Once people spoke of their land

and what it meant to them,

before strangers, with inflexible tongues,

bringing pen and parchment, plotted

names which whisper only an echo

of what they once were:

Palgowan, Benyellery, Mulwharchar,

Craigmasheenie, Pinbreck,

Corrafeckloch.