Bradford’s Famous Mill, As Viewed From Ilkley Moor

 

---

The mill towers famously on the distant hill.
Now seen in a wintery semi-pink sunrise
Of soft cloud and delicate rain.
The magnificent 249 feet of chimney
Wears its crown of clouds
With an assured transcendence.
It looks like a 19th-century ghost -
Furtively popping out of the clouds,
And then back in again.

Sure; Bradford isn’t usually this appealing.
Yet today it’s transformed by distance and cloud.
That keen separation creating an aesthetic charm
Which is often — or even always — missing.

So there the mill proudly stands.
A mill which once produced silk for the whole world.
Now perched like an stone eagle
On the very top of a Yorkshire hill. 
This church of industry.
This physical embodiment of Lister’s will.
His giant ego cast in stone.
This 19th-century monument -
Splendid on the Bradford horizon.

---

© Paul Austin Murphy 2021

[I can be found on Twitter here.]