A poem reflecting a childhood in a West Cumbrian mining community.

A poem reflecting a childhood in a West Cumbrian mining community.
It’s Kandinsky weather: see the boy on the capstan
His telescope shrieking as it dashes against boulders
He never went much for rivers…
lips like cherry blossom
with a beachcomber smile
her weather-worn hands
scratched and scraped
through seaweed and shingle
for a few cobbles of coal
when her back could bend no more
the Solway Firth sang her home
a morning’s graft exchanged
for an hour in the warmth