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Published: 13 Sep 2022

Wild Moment: Jon Plunkett

Perthshire poet Jon Plunkett performed his beautiful poem about Schiehallion at an event to celebrate the fifth anniversary of the Heart of Scotland Forest Partnership, held near the 'Fairy Hill' in August 2022.

The Attraction of Mountains 1774 (The Schiehallion Experiment)

1 – Theory

An apple tree among the stars,
and from it a single apple falls.
It spins through the spheres,
draws a line straight and true.
A straight line, a true line, until -
from the planet’s rippled crust
a mountain rises, exerts a pull -
enough to sway that falling fruit. 

2 – Mountain

In the heart of Scotland
a mountain of symmetry and bulk.
A shark’s fin of earth and stone
in and out of cloud, in and out of cloud
soaked and soaked again.
A place of ancient spirits, and new spirits –
illicit stills nestled by the burns
on this rock-crowned king of hills.

3- Experiment

The measurements are minute,
fractions of fractions taken from the space
between a star-line straight and true, 
and a plumb-line’s slim deflection –
the most subtle bend of gravity,
the tiniest sway of cosmic force,
and just enough to weigh the world.

4 – Men

They are small, there on the hardship of the hill,
five hundred and fifty metres up
in bothies to house them and their tools.
Small, there on the flanks of a spinning planet.
And from this tangle of human complexities,
sharing small confines for weeks,
emerged – miraculously – 
the measurements needed.

5- Results

Three hundred and thirty-seven 
observations of seventy-six stars.
Several hundred triangles
in various orientations.
Innumerable micro-measurements
of a plumb-line pulled.
From the maze of calculations
two things: the mountain 
depicted in concentric circles,
and the approximate weight 
of the world.

6- Conclusion

Take a clear Schiehallion night
under an apple tree of stars.
Climb until you reach the smallest contour.
Climb until there is no more hill to climb
and there look up and know –
the world weighs more than first was thought
and this mountain will attract
always. 

(c) Jon Plunkett