Kirstie Pelling is our GoLakes Travel #poetinmotion, out and about in The Central Lakes seeking and sharing poetic inspiration on boats, buses, trains, bikes and electric vehicles. Here’s what she’s been up to lately.

I began my journey as the GoLakes Travel Poet in Motion with a bus ride on the 555 from my home in the South Lakes to Keswick. I challenge you next time you are in The Lake District to board this bus. It must be the best commute in the world and in my opinion is second only to its colleague, the 599 open top summer service bus. In the sunny morning light, I sat next to an old lady. As I peered into people’s gardens, tried to spot what was in people’s trolleys in Booths, and saw the leaves turning colour before my eyes on the road to Ambleside, the Old Lady Of The Lakes got busy with her knitting, her crossword and her lunch. She had seen it all before. Because she started her journey long before me. A very long time ago….

Old Lady of the Lakes

by Kirstie Pelling

Some might say she looks as old as the hills.
I’d say she’s older, from a time before
the limestone wall was shaped from ancient bones
like hers. Before shepherds pushed weary limbs
up steep incline in dwindling winter light
to help broken Herdwick recalibrate
and scamper back home, she roamed this place.
I trace her journey in her contoured face.

She wakes from her doze and adjusts her fleece.
When mother nature tired and took rest
she rose and teased out fluffy cirrus nests.
Knit one, pearl one, her needles start to clack.
She tracked the rise and fall of fell on felt,
crocheted seasonal changes into quilt.
She cross stitched gate, tacked mountain onto plain,
sewed glistening sequins onto drops of rain.

She unwraps a sandwich from reused foil.
Back then she cooked and baked. She weighed the dark,
stirred light into river, night into tarn.
She added water. Drew the tide to Grange
and swirled it back again down yeasty shore.
Poached fish from the sea and moon from the stars.
Before the sands first shifted and took a life
she salted the sea, shaped the bore with her knife.

She completes another cryptic clue; eight down.
Before the poet ever noticed cloud
she wandered lonely, eulogising cry
of curlew. She sketched thunder in sky,
and charcoaled rain. Carved pain in stooping back
of Coniston’s old Man. Watercolour
brought to life each leaf, and every stem.
She painted pot of gold at rainbows end.

I wipe steam from the centre of the glass
and together we watch her life’s work pass.
Just the two of us. Strangers on a bus.
She offers me toffee; tree bark fingers
clutching sticky sweetie bag. I pop one
into my mouth and chew. It tastes of milk
and caramel and centuries of time
and it lasts until the end of the line.

Old Lady of the Lake poem ©Kirstie Pelling 2014 All Rights Reserved.

No reproduction without authors permission.