Ode to Simon Armitage

Uncurling my thoughts and
curling up to write that
there’s something comfy about you.
Well shod, brown shoes I remember
in Oldham Probation.
I was forty one and you, a listener,
with gentleness and an interest in
my Section 10 group doing English.
Your wall display of notes,
tracing the residential hike in
High Peak country,
telling it like it is.
Seventy eight now and watching a
Poet Laureate who feels like corduroy.