The Penistone Line
by Ben Parker
[ poetry - december 11 ]
The city dreamed a rail. It rose.
Cut from the land like a new god
the iron store of Yorkshire coined
a track. Her oaks were laid to rest.
Locked in the fallen dark
loud with shout and mattock-drop
automatic hands grope for rock.
The long echo planted in the tor
breaks out as piston-moan;
torque unearths the engine.
Crows rise above a gauze of smoke.
