David Underdown

Hebden Bridge, West Yorkshire UK

David Underdown (www.davidunderdown.co.uk) is a Mancunian by birth but has spent much of his life in the West of Scotland. He now lives in Hebden Bridge. For seven years he was an organiser of the McLellan Poetry Competition on the Isle of Arran. His two collections, both published by Cinnamon, are Time Lines (2011) and A Sense of North (2019).

Poem was written during May 2020 and completed on 5 June.

This house

Staying at home so long this house

of weathered wood and millstone grit

its slopes and angles turning to windows

and stairs to rooms between beams

the line of the moors that tells

each morning all we need to know

what else could I wish for this house

the garden the forget-me-nots

so blue you fall past them each morning

the same morning as yesterday

living like the turning of pages

over and over not even trying

to search for photographs

and always I thought this 

was our house I thought when we came

this is where we might live in these quiet rooms

for so many summers this house

built ochre stone by ochre stone

the one I long for the line of the moors

much closer than I thought

when we came here this was where

I thought there would be no going back

or forward I thought that this house

was where we would dwell

our blood and flesh and bone

with stories to tell one another

without asking why

they are already at the gate

the sirens the lights flashing like TV

inside wondering what will unfold

and remembering this house