Winter Drive Along the A66

Poems and Thoughts from the Anxious Poet

To listen to the poem click below.

 Winter Drive Along The A66
The white ashes of mist
soften the folded valleys,  
the breath of December 
has frost whitened our road,
from Scotch Corner to Brough 
through Appleby to Penrith.
 
The trees are full of angels and ravens, 
dark byres bearing new-born babes. 
A Shepherd minds his hill born sheep,
snow gathering on the tweed of his cap.
White is the colour of death and life,
black is the starkness in between. 
 
Moving through villages 
the road is undulant, 
repeatedly hidden,
ushering us past vernacular pubs
and lone, solid farmhouses
in rinds of hoarfrost. 
 
The rivers have bridges that God 
might use and the Rey Cross 
marked the border between realms.
Norse kings bear holly berry blood, 
praises for Woden’s day, and mistletoe 
seed from Freya’s holy buds. 
 
Oak and Ash are silhouetted letters
in fields like white paper.
Lines that are like litanies 
to winter and quietness,
to splinters in brightness, 
to mentor our calmness.  

The ruts of wheels fill with mercury.
The hard and fast borders between 
earth and sky no longer apply,
the white fields flow to white sky.
And we become in that one given,
received citizens of a wintry heaven.

God's Bridge is a natural limestone bridge over the River Greta, just off the A66.
The Rey Cross was ordered by Edmund I (r.939-946) to serve as a boundary marker between England and Scotland. A long-held local legend states that the cross was the burial place of Eric Bloodaxe, Viking Ruler of Northumbria and is again just off the A66. 

This poem is used in my latest Podcast to hear that click this link. Listen

It was written on a recent trip to Scotland for a family event during the snow that fell on the weekend of the 2nd and 3rd of December. It raised all sorts of themes about the Winter Solstice and the Christmas Festival that I cover on the podcast.

Wishing you all the love and peace that this season has to offer.

Adrian x