Gurling Trough*
The dry riverbed haunts the sky.
The rim is entirely treeless.
Weight of stone outshifts light
in the gorge,
eons dissolve
footsteps in the shadows
like shoe leather grazing rock.
Brachiopod, Spirifer striata,
crushed, honed and polished
into buttons of scree
and sheep droppings.
At the top of the gill we build cairns
to the gods of chance,
make wishes and move on.
Beneath us Yorkshire limestone:
the inconstancy of rock in water.
*First published in Verse Libre Quarterly - www.VLQpoetry.com
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