Twelve Apostles
Ilkley Moor

On the moor between two valleys,
the Apostles wait to be sent out

on their pilgrimage to the world –
with their gospel of stone, in a stone

language, spoken at a frequency
too low for humans, animals, plants

to hear, though the oldest trees
sometimes feel its resonance

but even they die long before
a single syllable is completed.

The northern stars wheel over the Apostles,
changing even more slowly than they do;

sheep’s backs and human hands erode
a molecule at a time; rain weathers them,

but even when strong wind drives at them
and lightning tongues of fire lick down

no spirit descends to give them speech
in the languages of this world.