Under a northern sky in a quiet September, 
Beyond the far-out line of water a buoy sounds, 
Rocking idly as the big ships pass. 
The sad tolling of the great bell rings 
Down the years and back in time 
To a far southern shore in the high summer: 
Towering cliffs and an iron ladder down to the hot beach 
And running over the bright morning tide-line; 
Great scallop-shells set on the ribbed sands; 
A perfect starfish sprawling by a pool. 
And all day in and out of the sea in the warm sun. 
At night, above the cliffs, up through the long 
Summer grass as the shadows grew longer. 

And always, always calling from beyond sight, 
A bell tolling, sounding, echoing, 
Unutterably sad and distant; 
Measuring without pattern the days and nights, 
Touching my dreams with uncertain melancholy: 
Telling the end of youth and summer. 
 
Now my child plays as the big ships slip out to sea, 
And the silent tide creeps unnoticed over the flat bay. 
Still the bell swings slowly. 
Nothing has changed. 

September 1970 
 

Always rising above the river and the flat coastal plains, 
It crouches massively on the Liverpool skyline, 
Riding above a townscape of still unfilled bomb sites 
Where black bin-bags clog the back alleys 
And spray paint scrawls drab walls and boarded, gaping windows. 
Wherever you are, there is no escaping it: 
An uncompromising gothic statement, 
Soaring ramparts of towering sandstone, 
Slab piled on slab, solid and unrelieved. 
Embattled fortress, a proclamation of unfashionable power, 
Reared from its foundations in an age of faith, 
Built with merchants' money, the tithings of an Empire's grubby trade, 
Unfolding down the years bay by echoing bay, 
Craning up laboriously over a century of slow growth, 
It rests now, dwarfing the glass and concrete capsule 
Of its mushroomed Metropolitan neighbour 
Perching at the other end of a street called Hope. 

Inside, the sheer scale subdues you, challenging belief; 
In this reverberating emptiness what detail there is lost. 
There are vast vistas here, but few secrets - 
A cavernous, uncluttered presence, but without mystery; 
A museum of masonry erected out of its time, yet without a history. 
Its aisles, tall tunnelled corridors tiled with stone, 
Shelter few effigies and prompt fewer prayers, 
No saints throng its shadows: there are no echoes yet from the consecrated past. 
In this monumental and hollow height 
Even the choirs trained voices shiver into high thin echoes; 
Disembodied amplified prayers boom and scatter through space. 
Only the organ's mighty thunderings 
Can shake the founding stone beneath your feet, 
Shatter the vacuumed acreage of chill and empty air 
And for a time fill up this tall, cold, vaulted temple 
With a triumphant certainty of splendid sound. 

Outside, beyond the bright, incongruous new glass, 
Even this trumpeting apocalypse of power 
Is lost in the indifferent city's roar. 
Beyond the terraced walls, the patrolled and guarded gates, 
The scarred streets still await their resurrection. 

May, 1991  
 

But underfoot the gravel crunches strangely 
And puddles gleam a dull metallic grey 
And the lit gate is rather far away. 
A sudden snuffling is a questing dog 
Pursuing night scents in the harsh dead growth: 
Its owner shuffles past without a word. 
Something unseen slides through the stubbled grass; 
A night bird mews its weird and lonely call. 

Forsaking further inspiration 
The versifier scuttles swiftly back 
To the marked sanctuary of the solid streets, 
With never a backward glance to where 
Behind his ringing echoing sounding feet 
The shadowed undulating silent field 
Folds in its secret under hurrying clouds. 

December 1998 
 

On the floor of this consecrated and cavernous cathedral space 
An intricate pattern of worship is laid down. 
At eye-level, one of a thousand witnesses, 
I peer past hats and hairdos to perceive 
A two-dimensional and partial perspective. 
Bishops and deacons and servants of the sanctuary 
Progress ponderously into and past the eye's immediate focus 
To squat on distant squares of this vast chess-board. 
In due course, remote hands are laid on heads 
As the blurred word bounces off the unyielding walls, 
Arriving sooner, or later, acoustically distorted, 
Twice blessed (at least) in my uncomprehending ear. 
The choir`s fragmented polyphonic praisings 
Skitter around this vast and echoing nave 
Until, to the organ's thunderous proclamations, 
The priestly protagonists process again 
Back into my view and on and out of sight. 
This has all happened to someone else, not me. 

Desirous of a decent view for once, 
In fantasy now I float free into the third dimension, 
Rising slowly above the serried ranks 
To hover, bird's-eyed in the middle air. 
No longer depressed by the gravity of the situation, 
Powered by my inflated personality, 
I swoop weightless over pulpit and organ-pipes, 
Pigeon-like, drop in on episcopally mitred heads, 
Dispassionately noting receding priestly hairlines. 
So that's what happens. I see it all at last. 
Drifting higher, I perceive all this pomp and clerical circumstance 
As merely a shifting multi-coloured carpet on a distant floor 
From which thin sounds waver up towards the over-arching vault. 

Now even the foursquare tower dissolves; 
The organ's utterance diminishes to a murmur, 
As my gondola soars past the tower's topmost pinnacle, 
Out and up into the bright, still upper air, 
To where cathedral, city, river and shining estuary 
Are part of a coloured counterpane laid on the flat earth; 
And all things: my empty seat far below, 
The songs of praise, the solid statement of the sandstone tower, 
Are one with birdsong and the sighing wind. 
 
Is this God's vision of his diocese? 
So minute, so lacking in significance? 
Quickly, I pull in the string of my imagination's balloon 
And perch once more, deflated, 
Safely small, anonymous and earthbound. 
Time to greet friends and find the lavatories. 
Now where did I park the car? 

June 1993  
 

The indifferent walls of this football fortress rise above streets 
Strewn with wet litter and festooned with tributes. 
Here graffiti is transformed into homage 
On walls where old enemies have inscribed the end of ancient hostilities. 
Now even 'Mancs' felt-tip their sorrow on red brick: 
Scrawled scripture of reconciliation and hope. 
And the line shuffles on endlessly, 
Round new corners, down narrow boarded streets in the dull morning, 
To pause briefly before the iron gates. 

Here is the first centre of the feeling. 
The verses on cards, ink running down torn paper, 
The sentiments misspelt and trite yet tragically heartfelt. 
The simple outpourings of thousands for whom football is their faith. 
To these Shanks waits at the gates of heaven to receive his own; 
A tribal hero set in their eyes only a little lower than the angels. 
Here believers have honoured the trampled dead 
With long-cherished tokens, given up in their memory 
That here at least they may never walk alone. 
But we are borne forward on the tide at last 
Into the holiest of holies. 

No pictures could prepare for this: 
The stadium lies open, its hallowed turf transformed and diminished. 
The stands rise silently behind and to each side; 
But below the far terraces the goal is drowned in a wave of living flowers 
And flowers, fashioned into all manner of shapes 
And in a host of bright and beautiful colours 
Have flooded almost half of the field. 

As the lines move slowly on over the laid tarpaulin 
Their offerings are taken and laid down in new rows 
On the living altar of this cathedral of flowers. 
It is silent here, but for subdued murmurings. 
The Kop has never been so still. 
Its terraces are hung with scarves and trophies, flags and banners, 
Peopled with the memories of its dead. 

There are no songs today, and few words. 
They sit on scattered seats to think or pray 
Or just to be a part of what is happening here: 
The lying in state of a way of life. 
 
And the crowds are marshalled relentlessly on and out 
Into the untidy shuttered Sunday streets. 
Tonight the gates will close upon a week of history 
And soon life will flow back. 
But today, for faithful and agnostic alike, this is the place to be. 
At this focal point of pilgrimage all belong together 
And uncertainty is stilled. 

Outside there will be questions to ask, hard answers to be given 
And truths to be faced in the end. 
But despite doubts and misgivings, on this day it is surely fitting to be here. 
This unforgettable place, sanctified now by remembered suffering 
Unites all who have obeyed their instinct to follow a million others. 
Tomorrow will be another day 
But today belongs to Liverpool and its dead. 

Anfield Football Stadium:  23 April 1989