Death on the Pennines

By Richard Carl Mather

To live this hour beneath a cold Pennines sun

requires the dead hills to flow behind us.

To see the mighty crow and not look back

means the death of something strange.

We twist and turn. Shadows drape over us –

ugly cloaks of lies that suit nobody.

We are mired in bloody hearts.

The crow comes, picks at the pieces.

I am that crow, that symbol of death.

I am the one that turns over corpses and flies away.