No Elegy
Because you never could be doing with poetry,
preferred your conversation with the hills
and the pedal-strokes which drove your heart,
ratcheting through wheels within wheels,
a process there was never need to question
which felt like smooth exertion of your will.
I picture you in winter, pumping along
the gritstone spine, sinewy and spare
just like the Peak, both suffering
in the same wind, till somewhere
above Calver you exhale, as the land
stretches, brindled by a sideways sun.
Perhaps I’ll simply fool myself you’re there,
hiding with the ouzel, running with the hare.
Lesley
19th February 2021