The Hill Runners

 

Hill running is something you admire.

It’s in your blood, North Yorkshire’s

Moreish love of loneliness

How the heather heavy tragedy

Makes mountains sides romantic,

Peaks magnetic as a pole star’s pull.

 

I know you dream of them, those grim,

Uncomplicated, headlong men.

You can see heroic silhouettes –

Black dot specks on blue hillsides

Doing something brave and pointless

Through the night, mile after lonely mile.

 

You have felt the selfish thrill of an unshared sunrise,

Flushed with pride when you looked behind

To find not another human soul

Between you and the horizon

The valley’s green-gold blanket folds

Glinting in the hazel of your eyes.

 

You have form, of course, being born

In the shadow of Roseberry Topping

Where you walked the bare backed, spinal ridge

To Captain Cook’s monument to sit,

Your little mittened hand in hers,

High above the village where you lived.

 

I am not cut out for it, but still,

The hill runners have got inside my head.

I dream of you and them, bobbing up ahead,

Of me, slipping, falling, looking up to see

Your darkly spattered runner’s calves

Moving into the distance, away from me.