Middleham Castle - The Prince's Tower

In December-dark caverns of shadow and fern,

Grey as the mist of the horse-haunted sky,

Is a clatter of pigeons where princes have played

In the curving stone bones

That are wrapped around secrets and sighs.

In hide and seek hollows

Where corbels are carved by masons and frost,

On stairs that climb somewhere and nowhere

The air is hung with breathing,

The walls are touched by fingertips

Tracing the shapes with a blind girl’s strength,

Remebering the blue and gold and purple

Of the pre-Shakespearian day.

Christmas ghosts ripple the chivalrous silence,

And I know that in the deepest coffin of a winter’s day,

On the turning of the bleakest year

That I was and always will be

Happy here.