Teenagers, cycling across the Dales up country roads in the seventies sun wheels turning, chests burning on our way to Tan Hill Inn
Too young to drink then we’d sit in the garden catch our breath and if we’re lucky maybe the northern lights I’d take photographs thinking to myself one day I’ll bring my wife here one day I’ll bring my children if I have any and we’d cycle home
All the energy I had then all that drive to ride the Pennine Road on the longest and the shortest days sit by that fire, dripping dry seemed there could never be a time I couldn’t call my friends and ride up to Tan Hill Inn skidding home in the snow
I thought it all was endless it all seemed so endless then
Now my kids are grown my kids are having their own there’s no energy left not in these bones to cycle up those hills just to sit without drinking…
If you can find your way back here let’s meet under the old whale bones this place that we each love Where we look out to sea or back towards the sleeping town
One day, we’ll stand together and unbeknownst to us it will be for the last time in our lives
Whichever of us, must go first let’s make a promise to meet again under the old whale bones Hearts filled with feeling and the beauty of the harbour lights reflected on the water
The hem of night is chasing us with its rude goodbye as it claims its prize and lays us down as we close our sleeping eyes
One day, we’ll smile at one another and unbeknownst to us it will be for the last time in our lives
Mum, dad, when you slip into that endless blue or if I am gone before you Let’s find some way back and meet under the old whale bones
We’ll pose for someone’s photos ghosts that chatter or ghosts that silently contemplate the sea under the old whale bones
We’ll stand together and look out across the sand stretching as wide as our smiles…
This aimless wander has me homesick my family haunts me Around the table; spirits chat and eat it’s been much too long since I heard those voices saw the smile in my father’s warm eyes somersaulted in my mother’s complete understanding laughed and gasped at the speed of my sisters’ lightning wit
There is a peace there in the disorder of my family I’m at home there in the disorder of my family
These years, I have spun far away but still we each hold so tightly my return feels as though I’d never left here That easiness and warmth retained So, to bathe in my father’s wisdom or breathe in my mother’s open heart to relax with my sisters’ friendly tales as they look to me with such respect
There is an unending bond there in the disorder of my family there is always a home for me in the disorder of my family
This aimless wander finds me wanting to return, to see my family to go back, to see my family so, I go home…
Five years of cobweb decorates the hallway box the urn inside holds more dust at rest well, it used to be your father…
Don’t look and it won’t hurt don’t look and it won’t hurt
Your brother’s drinking on a fifteen year bender so quick to lose his temper if you ask too many questions that snake prone upon his shoulder
Don’t look and it won’t hurt don’t look and it won’t hurt
Your man beside you lies untouched no communion for years now still the love is strong between you but something physical has broken in desperate need of discussion
Don’t look and it won’t hurt don’t look and it won’t hurt
I’m always here if you want to talk it through heaven knows, you need to I know it’s hard to face it fully but I’d do my best to help you
That mantra you’ve been living by it simply isn’t true the mantra you’ve been swearing by quietly, it harms you
Don’t look and it won’t hurt don’t look and it won’t hurt…
What if those cells collide what if the world beats to a different rhythm What if our path is forked What direction will we take What if we have no choice for the first time in our lives
What if things go smoothly What if then we’re three What if it gets hard at times What if we do our best What if something we never thought was in us well, what if it suits us
What if there’s a name What if it’s etched across our hearts becomes the story of our lives What if it was for this that we’ve unknowingly been waiting What if putting our selfish selves upon the shelf well, what if we love it
What if in the fading light we sit and smile at all we made What if they sit and smile with us too…
Walking with my father through the junkie’s habitat of the park past the band-stand to the pond where we stood and watched the birds
I longed to find some words to speak to him as he stood beside me like a statue in some stony silent prayer I racked my brain for something true some sort of spoken key to unlock the parts in him he never shows
I wanted to see some proof that deep inside he loves me too I needed to touch his scars to finally believe that all of this is real…
More and more my thoughts turn to you So aware I’m now the age that you were when the pair of you parted and you got that rented house on the edge of town
We’d stay at weekends watching winter’s tide sweep in stand in the falling snow garden and fields disappearing said ‘throw another log on the fire’ said ‘dad, your house is cold’
At fifteen, I was nothing lost in my own sea of nonsense I didn’t ask you anything I didn’t think to say a word Where was my empathy you let nothing show
Every other Saturday we’d gather at your house on the edge of town it all felt new to me felt so exciting a fresh world of fields to explore of walks to take and fires to light with or without you
So immature and lost in my own mythology I never really realised you could be hurting I didn’t stop to think When maybe your son could have been there for you
Living raw, living alone twelve days at a time the snow piling up around your house on the edge of town
While we still have some time let’s talk openly let’s talk now…
What strange gravities compel you? Which strong seasons manipulate the focus of your mind? What forces are at work governing your silences and interactions? What are the properties of magnetic north that keep you so firmly held there?
Which habits formed into crippling routine Which once-cradled ambitions did you let burn away? What hope, was it you had, for all of what you started when you laid yourself beside her?
The peeling back of quiet moments… The giving birth to living memories… The quelling of hostile emptiness… All these oiled by flasks of brewed liquid…
What source of buried passion exists? What reason for the unbridged distances of family? What cold and clear window protects you from the warm interactions of flesh and blood? On what throne beyond the claws of love exposed do you stay slumped? And what reasoning hangs from these vague choices?
The flame is weak and distant the light is dim The star that shines in you kept hidden by clouds of distance and disinterest
What do you feel when you see me expanding here growing into your shape on this reflective surface? What do you think when you see me flexing skills that must have been learnt from you? Do you worry that shared talents means shared failings Do you think to warn me against their dangers give the gift of wisdom, just an insight or two is there more that I could learn from you?
There is still some hope for healing the withered roads that link our homes There is still some hope for forging a bond that will carry us into the future
O, but where are you and where am I to you? Where are you and where am I to you?
Just like your father you sing that fearful song spelling out your anger in seven shades of bile peeling back the hate of the bitter man
Just like your father constant exclamations in the lexicon of loathing vague and barbed the angry poetry of the bitter man
How saddening to hear you singing your father’s song How sad it is to hear you singing his bitter song
Yet, here I find myself cold-eying old friends in new photographs nerves twisting at a stranger’s conversation silently debasing the happiest gestures nurturing the hateful hollow
Here I find myself clinging onto glaring disapproval Ready to beat up on the helpless misguided in my sense of sureness everyone else’s fault but my own becoming the bitter man
How saddening to watch my grip slide find myself crying the hot tears of the bitter man…
Looking out to look inside I see you both the pillars of creation above me, before me deft hands painting me into existence with hands of love
Across all time beyond the sky my gratitude expands eternally into a space that doesn’t yet exist hand above my heart your two hearts all over my art the hands of love
Should you ever leave you’ll never leave me the pillars of creation I carry, always, in me…
The Lighthouse 