Kirkby Stephen Poetry Path

If you are ever in the Cumbrian town of Kirkby Stephen, it's well worth taking time to follow the delightful Poetry Path. You'll find large boulders, set at twelve locations, each representing a month in the farming year, each with an inscribed poem on the flat rock surface. The poems are by Meg Peacocke and the beautifully-carved  stone inscriptions were executed by Pip Hall.

This is July:

Silage tractor incises the first green furrow. 

Skilful geometrician, the driver judges

an arc of weather

August, with the poem inscribed on both flat faces of this rock:

Crab apples tart on the tongue,

hazelnuts milky,

rosehips cool in the hand,

thistledown silky,

squirrel is speaking his mind,

knapweed purples the banks,

for touch, taste, smell, sight, hearing

I give thanks

The December poem is inscribed across each face of these three stones, lying in a pasture:

There sails the heron,drawing behind him, a long wake of solitude


You can read more about the Poetry Path by clicking here and you can listen to a commentary and to the poems read out loud by clicking here