A Hallowed Place

Up here on the edge
Where the clouds
Release their seeds and spore
The wind talks in tongues,
Wrapping itself about me like a greatcoat.
I hear the echoes
Of ancient tribes,
The myth of silence,
The drone of the Lancaster,
The stone groaning to be alive.

Music issues from the bejewelled earth
Larks and pipits stir the stone halls and spires
Vibrating the unfathomable sanctity
Of the place, a church built without hands.
Hymns resound in the sacredness of the landscape,
Issuing from the hallowed moor
Flint clean and polished
With the untarnished purity
Of a venerated spring.

Hollow hills release shadows,
Wraith-like mists snaking through the moss,
Witch-trees swaying, garlanded with berries
Reflected light from a hawk’s eye
Painted with the pinks and reds
Of a new dawning:
The curlew dances on the sun’s hand,
Lapwings with stars still in their wings, dream
Of a feather soft breeze,
That whispers forever freedom.