Laurie in Springtime

The Cathedral at Sunset:

Bleak and ruined against the sky,

Broken bottles in the court yard,

Amid the flowers for a famous martyr.

I held you as we walked along the river,

Feeling you slip away,

As the streetlights brightened the cascades of snow.

This is a poem I wrote many years ago about the end of my relationship with my girlfriend at the time. Although the events described happened in Spring, it was a cold spring and it started to snow thick curtains of snow that came down in wet flakes that seemed to drift down in snow motion. The streetlights were faint and created a ghostly funnel of light around the lamp post.

The snow flakes contrasted sharply with the wreaths of flowers, which in turn seemed out of place with the ruined building. Judging from the broken beer bottles in the deserted court yard, the old Cathedral must have been used as a gathering place for parties and illicit activity. But on that day, we were alone in more ways than one.