Scrambling through gritstone and shale,
pushing up out of myself
to where wind-tusked moors
trowel the sky.
Tall limestone stones,
rounded by the wheels of the wind,
pile atop each other into a curved nudity.
Nothing else here
but the low brow beating wind
where the plateau ends in a stark
nakedness.
I cannot stay, scoured to the bone
pinned down as I am.
I must return to tell someone
that when we have crossed a line
we did not see,
or yesterday knew nothing of,
then we should bite our tongue,
and silently appreciate
the plump village barmaid
who now serves
a warm beer.
The high moors slant giddily over gritstone edges
where torrents overflow gallons of sky.
Grouse are blown sideways
by a bone-twisting gale.
The land is harried by fishtailing winds,
a sparse tufted earth blown beyond its roots.
In the valley, cats crouch; dogs snap the air
their barks as full as storm-drains.
Torrid echo’s outrun stampeding frights.
In the village pub,
locals move away from the smoke grimed
rattling windows,
gather around a coal fire in the taproom,
speak about past storms, compare and contrast.
Street sparrows survive
by doing what they always do,
though nobody knows how, what or where.
Torrents overflow a rocking sky.
The high moors slant giddily over gritstone edges
dark are the claws of calamity.
Small birds are blown sideways into scant
bone-twisted trees, crooked branches spear each other.
The land is harried by low and high fishtailing winds,
the tufted earth blown beyond its roots.
In the valley, village cats crouch; dogs snap the air
their mouths as full as storm-drains.
A banshee wails in our hearts
while we listen to its silent screams.
We are nothing but torrid echo’s run through
by stampeding feather-light frights,
guttering lights that seek a less bruising way
to escape grip of this blustering day.
There are wild horses in the heather;
their neighing follows the wake
of hewing wind-wraiths.
The ponies are hardy and stout, they go
in and out of the clouds, slip through
swale and dingle.
The moors are high. You don't feel the altitude
only the depth of the land. When the sky turns sullen
it tilts to smother the earth.
If the scything winds falter, the shallow sod
bogs into sumps and divots
Where trees cannot be, clouds spread
a muffling mizzle over gorse and grass,
a grazing tide carries a spume of chills.
The hills here are thigh deep, rills of dark water
loiter and seep.
The small ponies shake their matted manes,
mist-sprays pool in muddy hoofprints,
the warm brume of their snorts
leads you onward on a lonesome track
for they alone know the steps taken
to cross over each dim acres edge.
Travel with them to a gritstone ledge,
where the heath plunges dale deep,
there above the tall treetops
a bright sky will rise up to meet you.
I can’t get the moors
out of my skin -
me the wild bog asphodel
now planted
in a pot in tame Ohio.
The moors grind you
into peat and gritstone,
they keep walking you around
while the open spaces sweep you dry,
even in the downpouring sky,
even under the bitter grasp
of banshee winds.
Who would lament
the bone hammering miles
trudged between hags and toughs,
the flat featureless,
slog over those high acres
of heather and mist?
Yet I find myself to be this longing,
to be this itch to find my own wilderness
here in suburbia.
You may find me now
strolling along the grassy edges
of Mall parking lots,
spot my shadow climbing a sunny day;
my head bent into an imaginary horizon,
eyes following paths that only
shaggy sheep can trace.
I can’t get the moors
out of my skin;
me the indirect descendant of Jim Bowie,
the wild colonial boy
now planted like a
‘Wandering Jew’ in a pot,
in tame Ohio.
Planted in a State
where few venture
far from their high school roots.
The moors grind you
into peat and gritstone,
They keep walking you around
while the open spaces sweep you dry,
even in the downpouring sky,
even under the bitter grasp
of banshee winds.
Who could love such as these?
Who lament
the bone hammering miles
trudged between hags
and toughs, the flat featureless,
rambling, high acres
of heather and mist?
Yet, I find myself to be this longing,
to be this itch to find my own wilderness
here in suburbia.
Here you may find me
strolling along the grassy edges
of Mall parking lots,
spot my shadow
climbing a sunny day;
my head bent into an imaginary horizon,
eyes following paths
that only shaggy sheep can trace.
Some are clearly Buddhist
while others are painted egos,
like Catholic effigies.
Species preach
their own cyclical creed;
melodies as pretty
as a Sufi poem
or gritstone in the zealot's caw.
It is the reverberation
of light and sound
that we recognize,
the feathered mantra's,
Psalms for the solar plexus.
Then there are the faithless calls
of mockingbirds -
there's always a 'then'.
Moorland
mist rising
over gritstone tors
Climbers exposed on sheer
Edges
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