Shaved grass beneath my hand
I sit on the green lawn
in front of Ely Cathedral
where the knights sleep in marble
their helmets laid on their breasts
like large and marbly eggs:
birds painted on their shields
of England’s threshing fields:
where saints stand in each niche
in their humble offering pose:
and angels plunge from the ceiling,
wings radiantly unfurled:
and I think of that lost world
massive, incredibly detailed,
foliate, cut and scrolled.
Ship that sailed on the Fens
where stilted they used to walk
among the marshland birds
and a maze of secret paths:
I feel so small and still
in this vast stony shade
though once I would have sat
with the whole weight of my soul
as solid as the marble
in which this knight is cased
with the painted birds on his breast
his helmet and long sword
so obvious in his world
his slightly eroded head
pointing towards the east.