MOUNTAINEER Hamish M Brown explains the deep and abiding lure of the Cuillins to generations of climbers.

The piece comes from his 2008 collection Achnashellach, a Loose Scree publication.

ROCK APES

For centuries the Cuillin waited,

A svelte beast padding the veldt of the west

Hungry for a name.

In the end men came to play their game,

Aping ancestry, climbing and screaming,

Beating their breasts. . .

Rock struck when they came

With claws sharp from gabbro imaginings;

But the same bare men return,

And return and return,

Stalking the hardest mountains of the mind

(Ice-clean and bsalt-smooth)

And wanting them untamed.