The Puddle Stones

PUDDLE - A poem by Simon Armitage

Rain junk, sky litter. Some May mornings Atlantic storm horses clatter this way, shedding their iron shoes in potholes and ruts. Shoes that melt into steel grey puddles....

This is one of several poems written by Simon Armitage, commissioned by the Ilkley Literature Festival and imove. Each poem has been carved, by Pip Hall, in rock at a different location along the Pennine Watershed (the highest part of the Pennines) from Marsden to Ilkley, forming a trail known as the Stanza Stones Poetry Trail.

"The gritstone pavers were reclaimed from an industrial site near Bolton. Originally quarried on the Yorkshire moors in the nineteenth century, and transported for mill-factory flooring, they have made their return journey, over a hundred years later, to rest on Rombalds Moor. The holes cut in the stones still have rust in them, showing where iron machinery was once set. In places where the iron fixings wouldn’t budge, they have been cut out, leaving rusty stumps. For a poem which begins ‘Rain-junk’, using these recycled stones seemed appropriate.” Pip Hall