| I
hear you (you are speaking to me) I am lying beneath an open window in my
brother’s old room. Your slightly lisping voice scratches my inner
ear. Your words enter me. But I can’t hold on to them and they flow
out the window into the superheated air above the valley, hanging for an
indecisive moment above Tubbenden Lane before streaming over the roof of
the house on their way back to you, to Heptonstall, ahead of me. When I
get there some days later, will you speak to me (again), dressed in Yorkshire
earth, wearing the moors like wool to fend off the sometimes harsh winds. |