Offcumden
A Yorkshire term typically used to describe someone who was not born in the county
I didn’t know I’d fall in love with bleak:
the swerve of dry stone walls along the hills,
the fissured scars of rock above the fields.
I’d never found an ammonite before
one nudged its corrugations out of mud
and curled its spiral shell in my palm.
I’d never heard of words like wapentake,
or village names that twisted lips and tongue:
Yockenthwaite and Muker, Thorpe and Keld.
I didn’t know I’d leave the swarming south
for winter dark and outstretched summer days
to trace my Viking name on Whitby graves.
Emma Storr 