Baildon Moor

Baildon Moor

High above the grimy townscape,
Way away from chimneyed mills,
Smell the breath of summer sunshine,
Listen to the skylark’s trills.

Altitude provides deliverance
From a dreary, downtrod dale,
Full of folk and fumes and factories,
Cars that crawl and waifs who wail.

Lushly green, the stinging nettle
Grows in clusters round a stone,
Free from the threat of chemicals
In pristine gardens, neatly mown.

Couchgrass, ryegrass, both derided
As the gardener’s enemy,
Here can flourish unmolested,
Rippling like an emerald sea.

Sheep meander unimpeded
On this breezy, breathless moor
Safely lead their lambs to pasture
High above the urban roar.

Winds add operatic music,
Shrill soprano songs of praise,
To this magic panorama,
Up beyond the city’s haze.

Thistles thrust their spearheads upwards,
Strong and dignified and proud,
Skylarks, thrushes, peewits, blackbirds
Thrive, safe from the City crowd.

High above the tedious townscape,
Higher still than chimneyed mills,
Hear the serenade on nature’s
Glory in the skylark’s trills.

© Lynne Joyce January 2006

A1

Dreary tarmac, droning engine,
Travelling to a micro fair,
Conversation’s none existent,
Look through the window, see what’s there.

Multicoloured motor vehicles
Gaily dance their wheeled gavottes,
Coloured like a Seurat canvas,
Accelerating micro dots.

Bright-striped, predatory police cars
Make the moving mural slow,
Concrete bridges prowl the highway,
Pounce on us then let us go.

Winds that comb the verges tresses
Lend the trees balletic grace,
Set the saplings shivering, shimmering,
Make the dog rose turn her face.

Dancing daisies, bobbing, popping,
Enter the A1-mighty dance,
Prancing poppies, startling scarlet,
Pas-de-deux then look askance.

Wanton weeds writhe like Salome
To the music of the breeze,
Casting veils of seeds and pollen,
Offered in homage to the trees.

Thorny hedgerows, near immobile,
Close their rapier-bearing ranks,
Washing waves in watery wheat fields
Splash upon the grassy banks.

Spiky, sparkling, bight-green meadows
Grazed by cows in monochrome,
Fresh-sheared ewes with portly offspring
Fleck the emerald sea with foam.

Dreary tarmac, droning engine,
Travelling to a micro fair,
Conversation’s none existent,
Through the window, beauty’s there.

© Lynne Joyce, 1983.