Sally Evans - Howway Teesside

I'll tell you Teesside -
green fields and peewits on sandy scars.
I'll tell you Teesside -
balsam sneaking up hedge and bank.
I'll tell you Teesside.

The river slides around its parishes
still with the Teesdale music in its ears,
the early primrose, the gentian,
still aware of boulders and wild rocks,
its lost gown of forestry,
even as it listens
to ranks of children laughing
from one generation ot the next.

Howway, Teesside,
the home of passenger railways,
now modernised motorway,
towns clustered together, aware of the sea,
sailors and industry, tall ships and scrapyards,
villages still secluded,
hidden in the loops of becks,
banks of tall ashes, thickets
of bramble and oak.

Howway Teesside,
streets full of plain talk,
markets of merchandise,
precious possession, not quite lost -

Howway Teesside.

Sally Evans

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