Upper Mine Winter Shawl Poem by Christopher Hopkins

Days as different,
as different as the colour of bone and mud.

The weathered carcass of hill pony,
solid in its mis-adventure,

rests amongst the waves
of the sweeping mallow flows.

Here at the black tide mark,
fortunes fleet,

with the ebb away of the Mother's breath.
Even at September's dusk,

of Venus in the blue,
awaits a whispered chill.

Soon the Norther points
to a deeper cold,

then the turning comes,
and the land is put to death.

The scarring of beauty never stops.
The dragline moves like the compass,

pointing to the blackened hands
at the blackened heart,

on the rough tides
of ploughed mountain sides,

cast away from the rows
of sheltering stone cots below.

There the kin will count the frozen hours,
until all are set faced

to the warming dancer,
safe at the native hearth.

They sleep with shallow'd beating hearts,
and dream of colours flushing back.

Slowly the Mother's breath does come,
and life unlocks itself;

the turning back to living waters.
From this hour-less place,

the quiet falling of winters lace,
to wishing days of domed gold skies,

these days are set through skeleton eyes,
above the town of life and tomb.