Todmorden to Oxenhope
over the Pennines
a field of three-bladed wind turbines,
every barn on the slope a Brontë.
At late evening, midges
hang in the dales.

'Conscious of the strong sagacity and the dogged power of will which seem almost the birthright of the natives of the West Riding, each man relies upon himself, and seeks no help at the hands of his neighbour. From rarely requiring the assistance of others, he comes to doubt the power of bestowing it . . . He belongs to that keen, yet short-sighted class, who consider suspicion of all whose honesty is not proved as a sign of wisdom.'

Blocks of limestone at Malham
(no water to dissolve these),
a black-faced sheep trapped
in a groove, one broken foreleg,
as crows mass on a higher rock.

*

Keighley to Haworth:

'Nearly every dwelling seems devoted to some branch of commerce'

' . . . with villas, great worsted factories, rows of workmen's houses, with here and there an old-fashioned farm-house and outbuildings, it can hardly be called “country” any part of the way.'

'The air is dim and lightless with the smoke from all these habitations and places of business.'

floors of the old mills soaked with lanolin
a fire will rip through,
as the Craft Centre at Keighley
went up suddenly

'The flag-stones with which it is paved [Haworth] are placed end-ways, in order to give a better hold to the horses' feet . . .'

*

Rain on the slates, Oxenhope,
rain on a fishpond
                          (the nineteenth century!)

The view obscured, back from the Pennines.

Newspapers reappear in focus
- the spinning lunacy of a 30s movie -
deadlines and headlines,
the images poems fail to attend,

MacSweeney drunk on the Orbital
or gazing over the moors to Brimham Rocks
printing the news that's fit.

 

Copyright © Laurie Duggan, 2003.