Peak District Poem by Sheena Blackhall

Peak District (3 poems)

1.In the Peaks
Lovefeast Barn and Fearfall Wood
Lantern Pike and Cut Throat Bridge
Owler Bar and Parsley Drive
Speedwell Canyon, Rushup Edge

Poors’ Piece, Sinfin, Borrowash
Dove Holes, Winkhill, TransPennine
Sparklow, Turnditch, Nutbrook Trail
Marsh Lane, Hope, and Odin’s Mine

2.Chesterfield Spire
Chesterfield kirk’s got a crooked spire
That looks like a witch’s hat
John Hurt the actor was born there
An I’m sure it’s the better for that.

3.Peak District, April
Every ewe is flanked by knock-kneed lambs
Methodist Chapels stand red-bricked to the wind
Up on the moors snow lies like linen bleaching

In chilly playgrounds, empty swings creak idle
Dykes and privet hedges, square off gardens
Stones like Battenberg cakes run on for miles

Windy knolls of caves and treacherous potholes
Have eaten away the shale and gritstone gorges
Limestone pinnacles of chalky white
Beside the crow filled woods circled by steaming rams
Shops of bottled jams and heady ales
Norman kees with curlews wheeling, keening
Over the fossilised wing of a dragonfly
Morris mummers and long dead yeomanry