Poetry Magazines - The best collection of poetry magazines online - Simon Armitage

Lost in Durham Cathedral
where I used to come
for sanctuary
or celebration on Christmas mornings
up there in the choir stalls
under the great womb arches.

Adrift now, a tourist,
walk down the side aisle
to the place beyond
where Cuthbert’s bones lie
under old grey marble.

A sign on the wall tells me
that under the marble lies also
the head of Oswald, king
of the ancient kingdom.
At the corners are four
stout white candles fixed
in iron holders.

Next door in the cloister
scenes from the life of Cuthbert
alone on his rock
befriending sea bird and otter.

Down the tunnel, into the close.
This place is a honeycomb
of sanctuaries, empty,
full of stone echoes. Against
the wall a small garden
in memory of the men
of Durham Light Infantry, dead
in two world wars.
A place to sit and stare
at stones and spreading rock plants
recalling sea shores.

From this high pile of rock throw
a fragile lassoo of memory to catch
on that other rock, castle corbel,
set in the running sea,
that place where barefoot monks
came island bopping
from Ireland and Iona,
from west to uttermost east,
that place from where
the bones of Cuthbert came
to rest here at last,
foundation for this gargantuan mausoleum.

Set out on a bright morning
travelling north, back to beginnings.
Morpeth, Alnmouth, Craster,
famous for its kippers,
Sea Houses and Mackay’s fish shop
where we used to book a boat trip
with Billy Shiels out
to the islands to welcome home
the puffins, land
on Inner Fame where Cuthbert
lived alone with sea birds
and with otters.

Banburgh, Budle Bay, where
godwit and dunlin search the mud flats
following the tide, and now
I see it,
like a dark brush stroke
far out on the horizon.

Further on and up,
the sky wide above me and the sea beside me,
to the small lane turning, down
across the level crossing
to the causeway. Tide’s out
and two mute swans sail serene,
incongruous, on the channel.
Plover and sanderling at the water’s edge
and an elegance of oyster catchers.

Along the dunes and through the village
clogged with caravans and cottages
advertising fresh crab sandwiches,
park at last on grass
below the castle
above the harbour.

Getting out the wind engulfs me,
takes my breath and leaves me standing
gasping, beaming. Someone
has employed a manic lighting engineer
to conjure April in high summer.
Across the bright blue running water
spotlights flash, illuminating
now Bamburgh Castle to the south, now Berwick
on the far northern edge of vision,
while storm clouds pour from off the top
of Cheviot, whirling overhead at such a rate
it’s fit to make you dizzy, and out
to sea where gannets fly from Bass Rock
to the Bay of Biscay.

To the left the Farnes float
with their white lighthouse like
a scrap of the Aegean.
To the right the ruins
of Cuthbert’s rose red abbey where
cloister would have had another meaning:
a shelter not from men but weather.

Turn away, to Gertrude Jekyll’s garden
walled against winds, filled
with silver foliage over old grey stones,
hollyhocks, godetia. Walk on
between the marsh and dune’s edge,
wind behind me, following
a high water mark of feathers
and bright stones tracing
tide’s path, pause
to pick up a tiny crab shell
purple, shield shaped, silver pointed.

Here on this island are the patterns,
ever changing and unchanging:
the dance of atoms, of wind and water
recurring and reflecting
in sand and feather, woven
into wood and stone by time and weather,
those same patterns known to Cuthbert,
far from churches, courts and cloisters
and the houses of men who could not understand
what took him to the edge alone
over and over, even
beyond this Holy Island.
One of the few who knew,
who have always known,
that god is not to be contained
in book and building.

Round the corner wind catches sand
off the dune’s edge, winnows it way out
braiding across the seaward shore
to where the sea creams in a white line
between pale orange and deep purple.
Turn back at last, and see
sunlight on the top of Cheviot. Hear
in the silence behind the wind
a redshank calling.