Wednesday, September 13, 2006
Pleasures of the Far East
posted by John Davies at 2:52 PM
One of the greatest pleasures of my tour of the Far East (of Yorkshire) was discovering St Patrick's Church, Patrington, and its hinterland, the long, low, flatlands emerging (just about) from the wide Humber and the vast, deceptively violent North Sea. The church itself could be a cathedral, for its beauty and its light. And it's no dead monument - the reredos with carvings of our great saints is quite modern. There's not much in any church that brings me to my knees in devotion these days. This did:
 I kneel at the altar rail
of the Queen of Holderness
Kneeling beneath great Saints of the North:
Patrick, of course, Columba, Aidan, Hilda, Bede
And Cuthbert holding a severed head;
Kneeling in this illumined place:
Full of Estuary light
Spilling through ancient windows
From wide blue Humber skies.
I kneel at this still point
Sensing the measured steal of the centuries
In which Holderness moves
Outwards from here,
Out, along drainage channels
Out, along straight shining roads
To lonely Sunk Island
And the shimmering flats of Stone Creek
Where I will kneel again
On a slither of land
Enfolded
In air; in light.
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john davies
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