Singing the Stone
That winter came late, stayed long.
Darkness dropped like a benediction
on the curved necks of your hills.
At the apex of cross-counties,
in the lesions of your valleys
we traced a granite chill.
Somewhere through the mystery
of smoke on the rise stand your pots
in a paralysis of nostalgia.
The gastric band of the A170
shouldn’t be clear of earshot
but yours is an annealing silence.
A stillness only broken
by the histrionics of a grouse.
“One for a willow, two for a bird...”
We sing as did the ancients,
as if we could sing the stone,
but the winter only whispers its words.
07