And as I tread these stark northern hills,

rain clouds the lungs,

infects the vision,

of all who sink, so-far, into these grey horizons.

 

Two hundred years and more of the very first industrial smog

have sunk, deep, into these stone villages,

set, like concrete, into these

sodden, sheep-ridden hills.

 

And in the pub

this worn-down, sepia-mid-afternoon light,

shadows a lonely man,

who drinks in the half-light.