Cymbalaria muralis

at Durham Cathedral

They built their God a house

to shoulder the heavens,

demanding all of the sky above

the broad loopings of the river,

where it slowly pinched its banks

into a single, swollen drop.

Above the waterline, where its

sprawling founds tread the stout,

bread-coloured rock, jewelled

chains of toadflax rope themselves

into ancient niches worked by

the insistent, scouring rains of

ten centuries; like hermits

riding out a life of storms from

a lonely Atlantic cell, their

ivy-leaves shrug off the beat

of each droplet, dipping their

solemn heads in prayer.

first published in Bindweed Magazine, 2016