This Side of the Rainbow


Precarious farmsteads sitting
on the edges of their fells
jus balancing economies
across close contour lines.


We passed them by
when I was five
and climbing Chapel Fell to look
for "where the rainbows end".


Instead there stretched
dissected plateau
crouching to a neutral sky.


Like folks off now deserted farms,
we never found a rainbow's end.






Eleanor Makepeace