Below Saddleworth Moor

For Eleanor Spence

‘What love of thine own kind? What ignorance of pain?’
Percy Bysshe Shelley, To a Skylark
http://eir.library.utoronto.ca/rpo/display/poem1915.html


All through that dreadful 60s summer
Overhead the frantic planes were circling,
Circling,

Crossing and recrossing their trails
Trying to find the unmarked graves, searching,
Searching.


Each night I held my daughters close,
Shutting out the shadowy fears lurking,
Lurking.

The reality of evil touched us all,
Left a weal on our souls, scarring,
Scarring.


At night I lie and puzzle at the world,
Looking for meaning or reason, searching,
Searching.

Above the Moor the skylark flies,
Seeking out a safer roost, circling,
Circling.



Martin Locock, 1998