Scenes from the North – Dylan Squires

SCENES FROM THE NORTH

BY DYLAN SQUIRES

I We wrestle wind of Irish Sea Atop red raw sandstone, And gusts that wail like ghostly gales, A far, far cry from home. Grass purls, The fading coastline hurls Past tales, Crashing from mouths of caves. All of it now a memory, Washed out and veiled by waves. III Scampering swift over loose stone, Falling fast from above, With feet that weave over water, Twisting towards the Dove. Alive, A sweet and sticky hive. Shorter Steps, the path leads up high, As summer sun gives one last groan, Waking a moonlit sky.

II In valleys hollowed by glaciers We walk where ages passed. Two faint silhouettes slip and lurch On the fells that outlast. Giants Turn men to marching ants, Who search For tarn ‘tween crag and rigg, A sanctum in Mother Nature’s Embrace, sweet as a fig. IV The fells, in Kronos’s shadow, Down by the reservoir, Where the rocky trail tries to hold Onto what still is our Warm heart, Beating for lakes we part. But bold In view, the Yorkshire dales, Over which we trav’lers now go, Rolling on with hay bales.

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V A path, through Yorkshire, of limestone, A pavement from weather. Food for acid rain under feet. In the dales of heather, (Harebells, Too) the wildflower smells So sweet, Its fresh scent a clear wave, Watering seeds of friendship sown, Passing Robin Hood’s grave.

VI On the hill, creeping into sight, In the Eden valley, Where a troop of cairns march on east, More miles to the tally. The Nine Mark the lost borderline, Where beasts With devilish horns brawl. But at the sight of those cairns, fright Enters the eyes of all. VII Left behind, the sheep of Swaledale, Sheep of foreign Holland, Those Texel sheep with heavy heads, Now stand on brawny land. A vein, The Swale cuts through terrain That spreads, Gaia’s hardened tissue Squeezing out walkers that exhale As Richmond comes in view.

X The trail levels out, turning black. Levelling out, turning Back the time to cinders and shale. And the ground starts burning, This path, Subject to human wrath. So frail, Birds squawk, a broken wing, And our screaming world turns to black, Our requiem to sing.

VIII Light illuminates the painting. The sun burning up high, Turns fields to flaxen gold shades With strokes of coloured dye. A sea Of lapis lazuli, That fades Through the sky’s blues over Malachite hedgerows, bordering The frame lit up solar.

XI Through Oberon’s forest, the day Tires as the sun dapples Its warming touch through emerald leaves. Each ray floats, unravels Along The rushing water’s song, And weaves Between trees that echo The sound of dell-fairies who play, Innocent and mellow. IX Wheat fields replaced and left behind. Ahead, snaking sandstone Slides through fields of purple heather, Whilst heat swells and cracks bone. Sweat leaks, As veins bulge, forming peaks. Feathers From owls, stuck into hats, To shade the Sun’s tightening bind, As pheasants run down tracks.

XII Ghostly mist from Northern Sea veils Eastern coast in myst’ry, As wandering souls creep onwards, Burying injury. The shore Sings the tail of the score With words That sink into my chest, Falling with the final exhale, As time rides the wave’s crest.

During the summer, I undertook Wainwright’s Coast to Coast Walk, from St Bees to Robin Hood’s Bay. The night before departing, my film camera jammed. So, I turned to poetry to capture the images along the way, hoping to expose them through words rather than film. Lying in the tent at night, I recalled images from each day, rendering them into poetry. My images are developed here. ⬛

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