Valentines day
should be a day
where hearts are aflame
with burning love.
Where cards
get sent
and tokens of hope
are left wherever
love speaks
in her
whispered tones.
But not today,
In 1818,
as fire broke
through
dawning
loving dreams.
Atkinsons cotton mill
in the morning haze.
Sunlight yet to graze
upon the distant fields.
A boy.
Just a tired child.
Early to rise.
Sleep still sits dreamily
in his eyes.
Takes the stairs by candlelight...
The naked flame catches
with the cotton threads
and a plume of smoke
drifts high above his head.
Panic stricken he tries in vain,
frantically to slow
the marching of the flame.
To stop it dancing between
the wooden beams, but alas
it’s not to be.
Fearful eyes now wide awake
watch as the flames engulf
like a wall of hate.
The workers
in the cramped rooms above,
Deafened by the grind
of loud, dusty machines.
Girls and young women
working themselves to the bone
to earn the dream,
a world where food sat
upon their tables at home
and they had a future full of love.
As the heat rose.
gloom and smoke surrounded them.
Choking fumes,
as the cotton and grease
of oiled machines
becomes a plume of death.
A swarming fever dream,
as the blistered wooden beams
start to creak and break.
17 lives were lost that day.
17 lives
never to feel the sun on their skin again,
never to walk the Yorkshire hills again,
Never to feel the rain soothing.
17 lives
never to receive a valentines card
with all the hope and mystery.
Never to hold it in their hands
and feel the warmth of love
as it casts is spell
so majestically.
Thanks for reading
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continue to do this.
Peace, Love & Poetry
Kyle
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