Walking York City Walls
I look across rooftops. How odd
I’ve never noticed the cupola before,
a grey lead dome topping white fretwork
housing a bell for the Bar Convent.
A flat roof, green with sedum mosaics
moss and self-seeded willow herb
has a sun-warmed patch of red, a fox
curled up, not quite asleep.
His ears merely twitch when a girder
clanks on the building site below.
He’s safe on the roof, tangles of brambles
make this place difficult to reach.
Behind a jut of houses next to the city wall
saplings thicken and gutters overflow
with leaves. It’s a finger of scrub, pointing
us humans back to our office blocks.
Here, a little wilderness has begun
stealthy as a wren hopping up ivy, and young
quickthorn, sycamore and birch discreetly
trill May’s territorial songs.
Sue Norton
A Dream of York Minster
And in her dream the Minster was on fire again
but was not consumed
and the stone kings on the choir screen
blinked and threw down their swords
and the astronaut on the roof boss looked down from the moon
as if he couldn’t believe what he’d seen
all the images of the Virgin showed her clasping
an emaciated child
and the cope chests opened themselves and the vestments
rent themselves in pieces
and the altar frontals were wearing crowns of thorns
and though it was midnight the stained-glass windows were blazing
and the flags on the floor striped themselves black, white and green
and the stones of the Minster cried Mercy for Palestine.
Sue Norton
Add a comment