You’re awake
You’re here
In this light
This Bradford light
A town built on the softness of wool and water
Feels like a good place to be born in.
The hills protect you, and the rain seems to whisper so quietly
That you hardly notice it. But it’s there. Falling like history.
You turn your face to the light, and let’s face it
The boom that sustained this place has folded like cloth
Folded and put into a drawer like babies were once,
When a cot was a luxury you couldn’t afford.
You’re awake
You’re here
In this light
This Bradford light
And now you’re crying. You’re filling your lungs
With West Yorkshire air and pushing it out
In long notes and short notes; and listen: those notes
Are pushing their way into a future that none of us can hear
A future that will undoubtedly be yours,
In the soft rain and the gorgeous Bradford stone
That has seen laughing times and shattered times,
The morning pram and the afternoon hearse.
You’re awake
You’re here
In this light
This Bradford light
And now you’re sleeping; you’re smiling in your sleep,
And sometimes you sigh like a long breeze from the hills
And nobody knows what’s waiting inside you: the cough,
The fear of spaces, the joy of running faster and faster,
The hands that look like your father’s hands,
The way you shape your sentences so you sound
Like you grandma, the crisps on the bib,
The way you seem to be born to laugh and laugh,
The way you always get any cold that’s going,
Catch it like a net catches a fish, the way the first pint
Will always lead to the sixth and the bag of chips
The way all these things will happen, will happen
Unless we enfold you
Like the wool that once enfolded this city.
You’re awake
You’re here
In this light
This Bradford light
