Lithograph: Durham Cathedral
The
cathedral is always above
their
heads, squat on the scarp,
foundations
a platform of smoke,
clutter
above the sinking lane
where
a chimney-sweep turns to the inn,
a
miner in this small city of bends
and
stacks and black soot clogging.
Down
at the turn, a churchman,
smirking,
strolls with his cane,
his
wife with kerchief to face,
upright
as trees
on
the rise behind,
a
slant of morning between them.
Out
in the churned land,
jigs
and rigging riddle the fields,
dark
folds piling
for
heavers who stumble,
ants
on the mound
where
the pits’ gain’s tipped
and
the brakes clump,
dirt
on the wheels in the sludge
and
mush of it back to the burning,
the
sheer bluff blind at its corner,
his
gaiters protecting
the
pick of her pattens
in
the dearth of the smudged sun’s shaft.
The
way down to cobbles continues to kilter,
the
usual cart, all falter and lumber,
a
goad over the horse.
