Velvet

VELVET HILL

More the panorama chair
With views all around
Steep step starts, pulling the
Strands of muscle, hamstring
Hamstrung

Sweat and prickly heat worth it
Miners once did this on Snowdon
Velvet is just a mole compared
I’m ashamed to moan

But once up there!
Those first Homo sapiens, what
They felt. I wander if this is how
Emotions first brewed, up on hills?
What does attract the eye when the eye
Can see afar?

On my way down trudging through
Hip high bracken
And that two faced gorse
You can stroke it one-way, soft, playful even
But try it the other!
Over sharpened pencil
That pierced my skin in infants
Someone said
‘You’ll get led poisoning now’

Fear struck my heart
Too scared to tell me mam
As I worried into the night