Saddleworth Moor TV Transmittor, 1/9/20

On the apex of the Ripponden Old Road A627, just before the sign for entering West Yorkshire from Lancashire, stands the old Saddleworth Moor TV transmittor. It is shorn now of its satellite dishes and defunct but remains the central beacon from which wide, maintained stone pathways for walkers surprise you by radiating out across the moorland, where the heather is in bloom and the M62 only a distant vision, all traffic, like the tv signals, maintaining radio silence up there. Dark striations filter down the sunbeams from the clouds over Rochdale, for even on a day like this, there is a bleak strangeness to the place, so high and so remote above the treeline.

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Two teddies are now

Both in my keeping,

Gifts to toddler grandchildren, us.

When new, Bruin was purple, larger,

With a deep growl.

My brother's.

Teddy was smaller, fawn,

Mine.

He lost his growl after an unfortunate fall

And a sink bath.

I loved Teddy with a depth which included emotional guilt.

I was jealous because Bruin was bigger and purple

And my own ted must never know of that.

I was the oldest but the girl.

Perhaps that played into who got which bear.

Bruin is no longer purple,

Faded after decades on my brother's windowsills,

At home and in his flat.

For a few years now, both have looked down from

The high shelf beside my daughter's childhood raised bed.

They leaned together, slightly forward,

As if wanting to come down.

I climbed up to get them the other day and soon saw why.

Both lambswool, moths have pecked their back legs into small

bald patches.

It's been a poignant time as my mother has lately died too.

I felt I had let them down, the two teds,

Neglected while cherished still.

I've dusted them off and put them on the coverlet

Of the single bed below,

Where they seem more contented, two old men together.

Better now, their worn little faces seem to say.