Mow Cop Poetry

Mow’s Hidden Past

Moans only the wind through the “ganni-holes”,

Where men once dug and now have left-

The heather to hid mined out spoils

And snow to fill the rocky cleft.

Creeps the damp, green sphagnum moss beneath the caves

Where once the stone was hewn and dressed.

Now only bracken misbehaves

To shield the rusting wheel at rest.

Silenced are the clogs and boots

Which trod Mow’s twisted tracks each morn.

The feet of men who chewed the “backy roots”

No longer swing their lamps at dawn.

Moans only the wind in the Silver Birch

Who storm-ravaged cling in small, hidden copse

And the tall, green firs drunkenly lurch

To mask Mow’s past life which is now completely lost.

Myra S. Cowan