Dialectics (Northern English)

   by Walter Nash

Our mam would warn, “Think on!” – and  “See tha dost!!”,
and “Don´t be mardy!” – “Nor  so giversome”!;
her sonorous lexicon of ought and must
prescribed the order of my boyhood home.

Jocular messmate and the word of truth,
such was my father; who, if I were sad
for a half-broken heart or aching tooth,
might gravely counsel, “We mun thole it, lad.”

I grew away from their provincial speech, 
I practised vowels, taught my northern mouth
(as far as it seemed possible to teach)
the neutral cadence of the civil south.

Yet still, in pain, in argument, in love,
I have a dialect, a voice to spare,
used when neutrality is not enough,
used in the trancing solitude of prayer

to one whose Galilean turn of phrase
translates to mine, whose comprehending smile,
turned on my penitence, my troubled pleas,
reflects an answer:  “We mun thole awhile”.

think on:   don´t  forget
mardy:  sulky, petulant
giversome:  greedy, gluttonous
mun thole:  must endure, suffer