YORKSHIRE MORNING

Today felt like a Yorkshire morning.
The chilly sun haloed behind cirrostratus clouds
gently warmed the Northern gusty winds,
carrying smells of life; manure, bread.
This was but a single morning
in a spanning life of a timeline so unbeknown to her.
The farmhouses bay windows watch down upon four ghosts.
Gold Top milk poured before this stretching land
and our history of Jacky going down the mines.
I stop and steal this moment to recollect everything.
The dew; a refreshing drink for my skin,
my toes curling and flirting in the meandering tall grasses,
an overgrown mint bush’s secret path for us. Undiscussed
the early morning’s sun gently heats lambs wool
to be pulled over our heads and our hands.
Our eyes see for miles across the stretches of path work quilted land.
Our safety blanket from God.
Down the crumbling stairs so steep that my eight year old feet
Barely sit flat. Counting steps;
One, two, three…
hurrying as my mother calls for me
and there she is, a vision.
A perm so wild it’s waves emanate the sea.
The kindest eyes; the quickest, wickedest mind.
Slender, familiar hands, nails bent from winding wiring boards
Her mind absorbed. In us, in me.
All of it, always for her family.
My parents pockets are weighted with future promised gains,
but for now we spend our holidays on the Yorkshire Moors.
Under black torn skies we feed on the excitement of each other,
of being together until first breaks of the new dawn.
And I watch a familiar child open the bay windows
to allow that gusty Northern wind in.
Throwing back her hair she reveals her pink, young skin.
She swoons as it soothes, releasing the poor bairn from her sins.
Let that light in!
For on these Yorkshire mornings I have felt God,
And now forever can I never not be with him.