I grew up in a house built from cloth

played in the ruins of cottage industry

old stones like teazle teeth 

chewing at my feet

 

fragments of industry

their lime-wash white

faded to a smoker’s gold.

 

I grew up in a valley

stretched over stone like cloth

rolled footballs and roller-skates

over sheep-felted grass

 

built locks

in the stream

under the old trade road.

 

I grew up in a landscape

where hedges and dry stone walls

ran through the fields like seams

where the past 

 

was a runic language

stitched, dyed and woven 

into oracular hills.

 

Time settles like ordered cloth 

in these valleys

catches itself red handed 

as it is folded back.

 

I grew up watching the past

pulling the weight of the future

along the canal’s linear thread.