Yarn Spinner
Yarn Spinner
City of hills and sheep and men,
Where mill stacks weave the combing rain,
I spin your story from a pen;
Sheep are not noted for their brain.
The carpet of a road rolled down,
A tapestry of bikes and carts,
The stained machinery of the town,
A muscled hedge of beaten hearts.
This is the place where I was born,
The cracked flags of my first walk;
A fleece of fancies clipped by scorn,
A skein of yarns that taught me talk.
Weeds now thread the knotted weft
Of cobbles bunching up the broken hill.
Abandoned houses, there is little left
Except the splintered raftering where still
A memory can flesh the needling bone,
Unravelling, forgotten rags of stone.