YORKSHIRE
by Alexandra Carr-Malcolm

My love affair with Yorkshire,
is strange to the extreme,
the rain comes down in stair rods,
and puddles turn to streams.

Flint faced buildings stand proud,
the natives just the same;
hard with a directness,
reflecting poverty’s pain.

“Aye up love,” and “Ta duck,”
a mantra of the North,
a warmth and loyal passion,
found around the hearth.

Depleted coal face scenery,
ghost towns from the past,
mine the depths of politics,
betrayed by bluest lass.

Coal-dust mottled snowscapes,
contrast the wuthering heights,
bleak outstanding wilderness,
the slag heap moors by night.

My soul belongs in Yorkshire,
with Brontë, Hughes, and Moore,
this northern heart keeps beating,
‘til death doeth close the door.

NOTE FROM THE AUTHOR: I grew up in and around coal mining communities. My Grandfather, uncle, and cousins worked as miners. I saw the devastation caused in the 1980s when the coal…