Geraldine Green
Looking Beyond the Plain
Revelin Moss, Wednesday, November 20th, 2007
Beyond the marled fell
beyond the slate path
beyond the bent larch stripped
bare of leaves
beyond this seat my left hip
leans against
beyond the grey town with its
spire of hope its thankfulness
beyond the shale grey flanks of Skiddaw
beyond this drystone wall
beyond Derwentwater lying
below me
beyond Castlerigg's stone circle
its mossed walls with the
small red village of lichens
I used to draw
beyond where I saw the owl
fly alongside my car before
leaving to hunt down
in St John's-in-the-Vale
beyond low clouds rising
like steam from a train
beyond the slategrey track
miners' ghosts tread at midnight
beyond the Plain
to the boned spine of the Pennines
tucked around first snow
that curls neatly
inside the knuckled thigh
of Clough Head beyond where Icelandic ponies’ hooves
brand the fells’ backs down to where the Irish Sea swings
in its greenblue hammock.