From her vantage point of south-west Scotland and its haunting landscapes, Mary Smith takes a long - and challenging - view of natural and man-made change.

Her reflection comes from her collection, Thousands Pass Here Every Day (Indigo Dreams Publishing, £7.99).

SCENE SHIFTERS

Millions of years in the making

moorland, hill and heather,

mosses and bog.

A continuous chain of actions,

reactions -

earthquakes, volcanoes, glaciers,

ever changing weather

people, planting, felling, farming . . .

Landscape today is not an end result,

but only a single frame

in a long-running, slow motion movie.

How well will we acts our parts

in the next scene?