The Corpse Road

This is so many roads -

The coal road from Gin Pit,

The keeper’s road 

To the shooting house by the dipper diving river,

The children’s road to teatime from the grumbling bus,

And the road of corpses.

With nothing behind

But the running glitter of the Burn,

The miles are measured by the thumping heart

And the slow tightening of calf muscles,

From the upswinging curve of the bracken bank

To the peated gritstoned shoulder 

Of Brown Beck Swang.

With a beer-pickled, dales-mutton-fed farmer

Lifeless in a wicker bucket

Bumping the shoulderblades

It was a bone-weary way to the moon-hung moor,

Before the sweet descent to Sowden Beck.

Beyond the ford the road divides,

Its hollows furrowing the rising land 

Where the middle ages couldn’t make up its mind.

Then the paths are drawn and pleated

To a dust and cobble line stitched across the fell,

Falling through the downpasture sweep

To the church 

Long gone from a graveyard of ruined elms,

To the blue hazed arc of Wensleydale,

And cool slumber beneath daisy dappled grass.