Dawn comes soft as a breath on the nape,

over ginnel and stone, towpath and lock,

a tidy hush where the narrowboats drape

their sleeping names in water's slow clock.

Saltaire stirs in her doorway of light,

mill ghosts sigh from chimney and sill,

a heron lifts like a hello into flight,

oarless and holy, the water grown still.

By Shipley the mist's a bridal veil

kisses the bricks, the bridges, the reeds.

Swans preen in their sequins, pale as a tale

told by the wind through seed-hung weeds.

Oh heart, here's a morning spun fine as thread

a Yorkshire spell, when the worlds still abed.