Walking

One moment basking in the sun, the next knee-deep in snow
astonished at the way these tracks must have filled to the top
of their dry-stone walls during the April blizzards. To walk

has been the idea since we were small, and so we go on
along new paths and old, the way our parents led us,
listening for a curlew, looking at a weird extended ash,

checking our watches for the train, stopping for elevenses
among the sheep-droppings. It is a rhythm that we require,
that speaks of essences and immortality; not a pilgrimage

because there is no aim, the route is circular, but a stay
against age, climbing edge after edge, then out across
the moor above Eyam, that hostel you think you stayed in once.