The Beckstone

We were going to go up Pen y Gent today but woke to wind and showers so decided to opt for a lower level walk and dropped the car in Bingley. We walked up through the town, through Eldwick to Dick Hudsons and then headed across Bingley Moor, Burley Moor and Ilkley Moor. Sounds impressive but it's really all one moor. There were a few folks out braving the showers, including a group of people not really dressed for the elements, with faces covered in white make-up, about to have spotty stickers added, standing in a circle - some sort of Druid ritual?! The mind boggles!

We had decided to come down from the moor into Ilkley via Backstone Beck to find one of the stanza stones which was situated in the stream gorge. We did find it and here it is.

If you are struggling to read the poem, here are the words:
It is all one chase
Trace it back to the source
Might be nothing more than a teardrop squeezed from a curlew's eye
Then follow it down to the full throated roar
At its mouth - a dipper strolls the river
Dressed for dinner in a white bib.

The unbroken thread of the beck
With its nose to the sea
All flux and flex soaping a pebble
For thousands of years here and there
After hard rain, sawing the hillside in half
With its chain. Or here, where water unbinds
And hangs at the waterfall's face, and
Just for that one stretched white moment
Becomes lace.

Lovely. The woman who carved it in situ (as part of the Ilkley Literature Festival) must have had a devil of a job standing across the beck. If you want to know more the Trail Guide to all of the Stanza Stones is here.