I’m running alone through an early dawn,
all thoughts turned off and weightless as my feet
are swift. A silent mist hangs motionless
on spider’s webs as if earth’s breath has stopped,
imprisoned by the millstone gritted walls
to either side. And all is still. Until the sound
of muffled hoof beats from a walking horse,
as menacing and thin as puritan
austerity disturbs the saturated air
from which the horse and rider crystallize.
His riding cape is
dark as night against the cold, his helmet
cast in steel, his thigh length boots black leather.
We pass without exchanging words, each one
intent on his own destiny. Then comes
into my mind the history I learned about
the killing fields of Marston Moor, Edgehill
and Naseby. Pike, halberd, musket, cannon.
Too late I turn, but horse and rider both
have disappeared. Have travelled on, forever lost
inside four hundred years of Pennine mist.
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