Look North: 
         A Corner

A Work in Progress
139

Nobody waits at the corner where a stone pillar stands

on a scarp rising from moorland where rock was quarried

where a traveler must turn or drop off a cliff edge

blundered over bones below are of fallen sheep 

Should someone be waiting don’t hike there alone

this landscape is steeped with ambush and anguish

trust nobody not birds they will warn you’re approaching

tread carefully for adders on this path stretch out  

Look north mostly north for that’s where you’re going

if you find your way down from this escarpment

a gravel road at its base the foresters made

you must cross over and stride onto moorland again

Standing by the pillar you can see where you’re going

which path to ponder or should you think of returning

or will you still be there if I come that way again

where nobody’s waiting where a stone pillar stands

Dick Russell © Richard M Russell

                       2026