Defiant by verdant hills
moribund in smoke darkened majesty
chimney stack piercing a violet stained sky.
No more echoes
of clogs on cobbles
whirring looms – clattering and chattering,
grey iron thud of engine that powers.
Now you are derelict, deserted, dead
yet standing and waiting in darkening decline,
your legacy neglected by the town that you fed.
You still hold the spirit of loss and dark grief
of children who laboured and ailed
of those who had toiled
now lost to the dust.
Yet still hear the mill stream’s
lonely soliloquy
untouched panorama of emerald and gorse.
The mill and the hills and the past that was lost