Classic Poem

Behind thick bracken—I can almost see
an arch of millstone grit. Two small trains pass,
but only in the mind. Across the lea,
where sleepy heifers graze on Haw Pike's grass
or sprawl out underneath a buttermilk cloud,
I see the bluebells reaching up towards
damp haunches, ferns and forest garlic shroud-
ing steep wet banks, the flowers of ripe gourds.

I climb the summits of two Yorkshire hills
and see dismantled rails, the viaduct
buried by growth above a brook that rills,
dead as the ruins of Hag Head Laithe, tucked
far from the stacked-high cairn of Beamsley Beacon.
I see five dew-lit spans alive with lichen.