North I’m convinced of it: childhood’s over,
in the narrow valley in the mist the frost
is silver in the veins and edge of leaves,
and last year’s briar’s coppered into stone.
Then more stone dragged to quarter fields
in which the miserable lives of beasts in winter
whiten into breath. The valley pulls –
poor pasture, poorer footage, water falling.
And all its children gone through millyards
into stone they chiselled Billy, Emma, Jack,
and gave their dates and shut the ground
in work and prayer. Or they are almost here,
their short days closing in an owl’s hoot,
crows labouring over woods, along the road
a footstep always just about to fall
and all their voices just about to start.