Leeds-Bradford Airport – a poem by Sam Hickford

Leeds-Bradford Airport

(genuine thanks to Rahul Gupta, the proper scop, for teaching me so much about poetry.)

“With its strong underlying fundamentals including freehold ownership with well-invested infrastructure, a diversified airline mix and its catchment area in an economic hub of the North of England, Leeds Bradford Airport is a highly attractive investment and a great fit for AMP Capital’s global infrastructure platform.” – Simon Ellis, AMP Capital, 2017

(According to historian Roy Price, Yeadon – where Leeds-Bradford Airport is based – was used by a nearby Celtic tribe to worship and bury the dead.)

…a bone-white plough. her beak
over rides one “brinded cow” (liveried in white & brown.) she surges,
surges. she mounts the boundary stones, emerging, merging with mist &
ploughs the cotton-mill clouds. the Celts lie deep, sleeping in
Concrete…
..now, her winded-wound crest beams her into the self-same
shroud They gestured to. (you imagine processions of red & white.)
carbonic incense tapers down…

…that deaf-grazing cow, behind
barbed-wire-boundary-stone, has a moment of respite: a
briared river’s flow’s brown & white, in moon-of-evening’s
hushed-up light…

…wild-fowl: they whimper
wearied moon-wet lullabies. their home’s a nearby
Dam quite drowned in the drone of ryanairs bleating across t’ Aire…

…a Tesco bag braves the
cross-wind. it’s abstract now: its plough-songs
of white-of-bone.

Sam Hickford is a poet and freelance writer. He has written for The Guardian, Catholic Herald and The Tablet, and his poetry has appeared in Ink, Sweat and Tears.