The Stanza Stones - 4-6

To complete our walk in aid of Children in Need we did the last 4 stones today.  Starting with the Mist Stone, just below Oxenhope , we then headed off to see the last three, over near Silsden and Ilkley. The weather was not so good this time but dry and quite warm at times.

As ever - finding them was the challenge with the road accesses nearby rarely featuring in my sat nav. The first near Oxenhope was the trickiest and required a re-tracing of steps. The Mist Stone is again near a quarry,sandstone this time. A very muddy walk took us through grassy mounds to a well worn and split stone. Carved in sight of the Brontes the words of this poem were:
 MIST
Who does it mourn? What does it mean, such
nearness, gathering here on high ground
while your back was turned, drawing its
net curtains around? Featureless silver screen, mist
is water in its ghost state, all inwardness,
holding its milky breath, veiling the pulsing machines
of great cities under your feet, walling you
into these moments, into this anti-garden
of gritstone and peat. Given time the edge of
your being will seep into its fibreless fur;
You are lost, adrift in hung water
and blurred air, but you are here.
©Simon Armitage 2010

After the customary Sue pose it was time to walk back to the car and seek our next stanza- The Dew Stones.







It was near Silsden and we happened just about perfectly on the right lay by to park up. The walk however was another tough one , uphill and through a field newly spread with cow muck!

 We climbed over a coupe of the most inaccessible stiles known to man in need of an extra step or two to make things easier.The cows watched as we walked through their first field, probably smiling at what was in store for us. Straight through the next gate the muck-spreading had been done! Every footstep was in cow dung or bog! Never mind - the guide sheet told us that we would be walking through a lovely forest just beyond the mound at the top of the field.

The forest of course had been cleared making this one of the most disappointing stone walks we had done in terms of scenery.

Forest trail!

 The Dew Stones were nice though. made of granite from a Brighouse quarry they had been deliberately split using wedges in an old Egyptian style. Originally laid out as mirror pages, flat as a book they are now stood up with a slight gap between to let light pass through.                                                                         

Dew

The tense stand-off
of summer’s end,
the touchy fuse-wire
of parched grass,
tapers of bulrush and reed,
any tree
a primed mortar of tinder,
one spark enough to trigger
a march on the moor
by ranks of flame.
Dew enters the field
under cover of night,
tending the weary and sapped,

©Simon Armitage 2010

lifting its thimble of drink
to the lips of a leaf,
to the stoats tongue,
trimming a length
of barbed-wire fence
with liquid gems, here
where bog-cotton
flags its surrender
or carries its torch
for the rain.
Then dawn, when sunrise
plants its fire-star
in each drop, ignites
each trembling eye.
 ©Simon Armitage 2010

 Our next Stanza Stone was but a short drive leading us near to Ilkley moor. The sun got out  at this time and the light was much better. Heather was being burned across the moors and the grouse were flying past us in fright. A longer but easier walk took us over Yorkshire stone footpaths , past the wireless station on the moor, past the Thimble Stones and on to the Puddle Stone. A lovely walk undertaken totally bah tat!

PUDDLE

Rain-junk
Sky-litter
Some May mornings
Atlantic storm-horses
clatter this way,
shedding their iron shoes
in potholes and ruts,
shoes that melt
into steel grey puddles
then settle and set
into cloudless mirrors
by noon.
The shy deer
of the daytime moon
comes to sip from the rim
But the sun
likes the look of itself,
stares all afternoon,
Its hard eye
Lifting the sheen
from the glass,
turning the glaze
to rust.
Then we don’t see things for dust.

©Simon Armitage 2010


By now we were peckish and needed lunch. Decisions were made to get to Ilkley, grab a bite to eat and then find the last Stanza Stone, the Beck Stone. This one should be good we thought as it is in the middle of the beck and one of the shortest walks.. After parking near Craiglands we headed off uphill amongst the gorgeous ferns and changing leaves.

Better signed than most

All uphill!

And there it was...

Feet either side of the beck to get the shot

The Beck

It is all one chase.
Trace it back the source
might be nothing more than a teardrop
squeezed from a Curlew’s eye,
then follow it down to the full-throated roar
at its mouth - a dipper strolls the river
dressed for dinner in a white bib.
The unbroken thread of the beck
with its nose for the sea
all flux and flex, soft-soaping a pebble
for thousands of years, or here
after hard rain, sawing the hillside in half
with its chain. Or here, where water unbinds
and hangs at the waterfall’s face, and
just for that one, stretched white moment
becomes lace.

©Simon Armitage 2010

All downhill from here

And that was it - all 6 Stanza Stones visited! We heaved our aching bodies back to the car and back to Leeds. Time for one last poem from me I think...
 Thanks a bunch Countryfile!
Countryfile showed us the way
To visit the Stanza Stones
A sponsored walk would do us good
Great for our lungs and bones.

We`d drive a bit and keep walks short
Feeling  non too hardy
Lovely and warm, no need for coats
Not even for a cardi.

If only we`d known they`d be uphill
Through cowpats, wet and clarty
We`d have stayed at home and snuggled up
Staying fit and hale and hearty.

Seriously, we`de never heard of the Stanza Stones before and it was nice to go off walking  with a purpose and nice to do the whole set. Try the walks for yourself or why not do the whole 54 mile stretch on foot! Let us know how you get on.

The Stanza Stones Trail

Watching Countryfile the other week (Yes I know , getting old..but it`s good!") we saw a feature on the Stanza Stones Trail in Yorkshire. We`d never heard of it before and decided to tie it into a sponsored walk in aid of Children in Need as pushed by Countryfile in it`s weekend ramble fund raising idea. OK we didn`t seek  sponsors, instead making our own donations for the joy of walking but decided the Stanza Stones it was - if we could find them.
The Stanza Trail was developed in collaboration by poet Simon Armitage and the Ilkley Literature Festival. In June 2012 Armitage wrote a collection of 6 poems inspired by the  language and landscape of the Pennine Watershed, which were then carved onto stones across the upland by stone artist Pip Hall, forming a permanent ‘Poetry Trail’ from Armitage’s home town of Marsden to the Festival’s base in Ilkley. Whether you’re a keen walker ready to tackle full day walks incorporating two or more stones in one go or just fancy a short family outing there’s something for everyone. You can even walk the whole 54 miles at once if you like!  Downloading a guide I noted an absence of postcodes for locations and rather indecipherable map references that spelled trouble. We chose the drive and walk approach which had served us so well when following the footsteps of the pilgrims on the Camino de Santiago in northern Spain.

Our first stop was the Snow Stone near Marsden and was indeed problematic. using the supposed postcode of the pub nearby we "found" the lay by to park and galloped up the hill to find a disused quarry where we would surely find the stanza in question. As we stumbled around in the knee high grasses we bemoaned the lack of signposts other than National Trust walk trails and failed to find the stanza. A walking couple were approached who knew nothing of our destination and walked on. We did like talking to the sheep at least - bemused by or antics. In the end it was decided that we would write our own stanza in the form of a limerick which you must imagine carved into the quarry wall below:

Lost in Space
There was an old couple  from Leeds
Who got lost in the grasses and weeds.
Singing "Where`s this damned stanza?"
Like Mario Lanza
As the sweat formed on foreheads in beads.

It was incredibly hot for an Octobers day on the moors!

In disappointment it was agreed to walk back to the car and carry on to the 2nd stone, having lost nigh on 1.5 hours  walking on the moors in hope. Jumping in the car we drove on only to  see within 2 miles the more obvious signs of all the indicators flagged in the walk guide on the hill to our left. Ignoring Sue`s pleas to carry on to a loo stop I decided it must be done and a U-turn was made to enable us to walk once more onto the moors in search of the elusive stanza to snow.

As we walked up the long hill to the quarry we bumped again into the walking couple who, at first bemused by how such a clearly out of condition pair had managed to somehow, catch and pass them on their circular walk, decided they too would see the stanza. In one of those amazing  sets of coincidences they had recently been to Bristol, as had we, and had stayed at the Shibden Mill Inn the previous night , which was our final destination of the day for a booked afternoon tea. As we passed the Stanza Stone posts we realised we were indeed on the right track.

The road indicators to the Snow Stone Stanza

The artificial slope up to the quarry

The heart shaped cloud told us we were in the right place

The Snow Stanza is already wearing but words below

 

 

 

 

 

Snow by Simon Armitage

The sky has delivered its blank missive. The moor in coma. Snow, like water asleep, a coded muteness to baffle all noise, to stall movement, still time.
What can it mean that colourless water can dream such depth of white? We should make the most of the light. Stars snag on its crystal points. The odd, unnatural pheasant struts and slides. Snow, snow, snow is how the snow speaks, is how its clean page reads.
Then it wakes, and thaws, and weeps.

I think you`ll agree - not quite as snappy as our effort!

Fancy walking the whole lot?

Thinking of a stanza on the poet`s seat

 How about:

Paul said he knew the way,
Never did I doubt it.
Next time I`ll not believe a word
No matter how he shouts it!
 I know - only 4 lines but what the hell!

Two tunnels take air to the rail and canal tunnels below

...and on to the next

The next we sought  (Rain) was at  Cow’s Mouth Quarry near Blackstone Edge. The quarry is situated about 20 minutes walk along the track which starts at the White House pub. The Pub is on the A58 road between Halifax and Littleborough just beyond Blackstone Edge Reservoir. This was much easier to find and also enable a drinks and wee stop first - still in glorious sunshine on the Lancashire / Yorkshire border. The White House pub is one of those typical old wayside pubs, unaltered in 40 years and a testament to the soft furnishings and decor of the 1970/80`s - but welcome! This walk was flatter and much easier. An information board told us this was part of the Pennine Way and that Blackstone Edge was also the meeting point for more than 20,000 Chartists back in the days of struggles for worker`s rights. Good on them! As we passed another walker and I was taking photographs of the fabulous views he chided  " Best shoot t`other way lad, that`s better. It`s Yorkshire."

Met a troll - must have got in my backpack in Norway

 If you cannot see the poem`s words it reads:
Rain
Be glad of these freshwater tears,
Each pearled droplet some salty old sea-bullet
Air-lifted out of the waves, then laundered and sieved, recast as a soft bead and returned.
And no matter how much it strafes or sheets, it is no mean feat to catch one raindrop clean in the mouth,
To take one drop on the tongue, tasting cloud pollen, grain of the heavens, raw sky.
Let it teem, up here where the front of the mind distils the brunt of the world.

Delayed by our first abortive quarry visit time loomed large now for our afternoon tea booking. It had been a birthday gift to Sue earlier in the year and was a great end to the day and we decided the other Stanza Stones could wait until Sunday.... To be continued.


 Afternoon tea at the Shibden Mill Inn was fabulous - probably one of the best ever with champagne and the best cakes ever! Great gift - thanks Jonathan and Zoe. Hope you still know Sue when she is 70!

                                                            Treat Time

 Afternoon tea`s a wonderful treat,
Wonderful sarnies and cakes to eat.
Washing it down with champagne and tea
Best way to end the day for me!


Gorgeous!