Poetry 8 December 2020 The NS Poem: Mam Tor A new poem by Ben Wilkinson Getty Sign UpGet the New Statesman\'s Morning Call email. Sign-up All winter we ran across the moors, the doors to the peaks blown open by blizzards or taken clean off their hinges, like those ancient houses on gale-torn summits. Winnats Pass was closed but we skipped the warning that day-like-night, parked halfway up its ice-age helter-skelter, stumbled out. What were we thinking all that long, long year, barely sensing what was right up ahead? At the trig point we swore we saw a figure, hunched and cursing in the sleet. We trudged back down as if it were a coffin path, each of us counting out their own metred feet. Ben Wilkinson is a poet, lecturer, and critic. His first collection, "Way More Than Luck" (Seren), was highly commended in the Forward Prizes for Poetry. A second collection is due in 2022. [see also: NS Poetry: Car Park, Christmas Eve and January 1st] › How Covid-19 vaccines could rapidly reduce the UK’s death rate This article appears in the 11 December 2020 issue of the New Statesman, Christmas special