DURHAM SEEN FROM THE TRAIN THE cathedral glides behind the
cutting's long wave of grass and earth, removed
completely by a window's fractional displacement and the locomotive's endless moment that closes like a wall now in the flower-foamed embankment, now on a bird's unmoving wings.
The traditional escarpment crumbles out of sight. The prison and the hollow castle fall upon their knees.
The river turns and disappears into a crust of trees.
The last houses like a rib lie broken on a temporary field invaded by a token pavement.
The heart imagines what the eye no longer sees. Though distance seems to kill the things we love and time preserves the gift beyond the giver, still in a moment's bead of air the lover lives within his kiss, hand treasures hand forever, and above the re-appearing river still the city rises where it always rose.
- JAMES KIRKUP.
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