The Tops

up a steep and gritty track reach the tops wilderness reclaims a verge of wintery snags land juts and tilts hauls out lays treeless clumps and hags pitch up stricken soil heap their marshy troughs loud the heartbeat nearer to feral thought then any numb mouth or ear slough quag and mire muddle seep listless every bog runnel shrouded to fetch up the feckless harsh and gorsy heather grips low the moors stretch flat and far fetching a grappling wind blears bites and baffles a bedrock sprouting tough rooted and cold as an ice-crushed vine clutches flinty undercuts wait to pitch the faltering a tangle of un-spun fleece caught in barb and thistle sheep piss in running rivulets thread through mizzle-pecked rocks inscribed by whatever tortures the air ravens picket gritstone edges glimmer wings beat back the below primal caws that lift and speak for the standing stones their harrowing storm-cuffed history as silent as scored moss or lichen before light founders cropped spikes snatch snaggle beneath a lowering mist or snow flecked haze a scant anchoring a shallow farrowing shorn and scoured below and aloft shredding miles with toil and trudge twenty years later son sends pictures of moors long traipsed the sky in my phone howls