Loch Voil is a remote loch in the highlands of Scotland - a place of incredible beauty, which my wife and I visit whenever we have a walking holiday in the highlands. We were there on a lovely day last October; my wife painted a water- colour of the scene whilst I brewed the tea, took photographs - and thought about poems. When we tried to walk along the lochside, we found that this lovely place was littered with broken beer- bottles - the aftermath of many drinking- parties. The first reaction was anger, then a sadness for the perpetrators and the complete absence of a sense of beauty in their lives. This poem was the result.