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The Scottish Mitten

Dark April morning in Cairngorms,
and I on a walk in the wind and the snow,
the weather worsening by the minute.

And there on the path lay a gray wool mitten,
thick and sturdy, and I stooped and stowed
it in my pack, hoping to overtake the owner,

for today was not the kind of day to go bare-handed.
Some moments later, the storm progressing,
a pair of figures approached on the trail—

a young man and a young woman in rich
dark coats, tall and handsome, and heading
back, I had no doubt, to a great stone house

in the valley below. We greeted one another
in passing, I in awe and they with the briefest
of nods. Then they disappeared behind me,

gone into the gathering blizzard, and not
until it was much too late did I remember
I had a mitten to offer them.

What thanks I might have gained!
What smiles, what keen appreciation!
Even an invitation, perhaps, to join

them around the hearth in that mansion,
our fingers thawing by the fire,
tumblers of warm scotch in hand.

But I walked on, the mitten heavy in my pack,
and the storm grew greater, the trail steeper, and
I was alone, bent against the wind and the snow.

—
Paul Willis has published eight full collections and six chapbooks of poetry, the most recent of which is Orvieto (Solum Literary Press, 2025). Individual poems have appeared in Poetry, Light, and Southern Poetry Review. He is an emeritus professor of English at Westmont College in Santa Barbara, California.

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