Gathering shadows at dusk
impressions of the Southwest Peak
Over the cold, wet reach of last winter, I was working
with friends from Telltale to prepare an interpretive plan for the Southwest Peak Landscape Partnership. The Partnership encompasses a sweep of land along
the western edge of the Peak District from the Dale of Goyt, down to the hollows
of Macclesfield Forest, up to the drags of the Roaches and out over the Warslow
Moors. It is a wild, varied and rich landscape that often seems a little
forgotten compared to the honeypots of Dovedale, Castleton and Kinder Scout and
their hordes of visitors. Climbers clamber over the Roaches, walkers follow
ancient footpaths, witches gather on hilltops and by deep still pools, and
casual visitors picnic all over the place. The Roaches also hold Lud’s Church
about which I ramble without any provocation at all. So I won’t here.
Part of my role in the project was to work with residents and users of the area to gather a more emotional map of the area rather than a sensible map of what and where and how. So we met and talked, told stories to each other, remembered and shared memories and gathered ideas into a series of poems
There are 4 poems. I will post two now and two more
shortly. I hope you enjoy them
MOMENTS
Ramshaw Rocks brood over the road,
Remembering ancient seas,
And a river runs cool under Three
Shires Head,
On a hot summer day,
Music, laughter,
The voices of a village.
Open space on the moors,
Picking bilberries,
The ancient woods
Below the Roaches,
On the last day of summer,
The heather lies purple on Hen
Cloud.
Crisp snow
Gathers shadows at dusk,
The aurora glows across the sky,
The Roaches slip into space and
quiet,
Sometimes the mist fills the
valleys and the hills look like islands.
2. CONTINUITY
Cotton grass blows on the moors,
Dandelions burn the fields yellow,
The last hay meadows fill with
flowers,
With bees, with butterflies.
With the rain,
The fields slip into mud,
Water on shale soils puddles into,
A haven for rushes,
Always more to explore, here.
A picnic on the grass overlooking
the valley,
Connects with other times, other
picnics,
A pause in the cutting,
Hay banked up on Whitelow meadow.
Laughter.
Children have run down to the
river,
For centuries,
Families, friends,
On the grass overlooking the
valley,
Again, and again,
A picnic over centuries,
A long living in these dales,
Under the moors and the bogs and
the ridges.
Hen Cloud, Windgather, Goyt
There is always more to explore,
Pilbsury Castle in the moonlight,
Always more to hold us here,
A barn
owl flies in the dusk,
Little owls, deer
The secret lives of the moorlands.
Always more to love here,
The warmth of a form where a hare
was lying
And the
voice of the curlew heralds the spring.
