Wall

Rough lane towards Hagg Wood is metalled now,

Avenue of pebble-dash and open plan

Down to a stony track that parallels

A regular wall that’s certainly not new.

Well-dressed blocks of soot-blackened millstone

Stands shoulder high and heavily as it dwells

An urban curtain drawn round a rural

Aspect, a reservoir for a cotton town

Woven into the fabric of the valley

Below. Pause a moment. Peek over that wall

To watch ripples and eddies as they’re blown

Across couch grass where water used to be.

Was the water allowed to leak away

Like textiles from the town, and left fallow?

Dry stone walls straggle the distant moor

While this wall, round a res. drowned in soil, will stay

Put, unless there’s more pebble-dash to follow

Or stone has a price too high to ignore.

It stands for now, as dry stone walls tumble,

But, rub at the mortar and it crumbles.

                                                                                                                Dave Alton