Capital Poet

Architect

E.A.Rickards (1872-1920)

Such a tonnage of Portland stone,
shipped to a coal town as the century turned.
Luminous, Jurassic, pure as stacked ice,
and marble from Sienna unloaded in the dirt
beside the black, black coal that paid for it.

Oh, to have been there, a hundred years ago,
Law Courts and City Hall complete,
flanking an avenue of sapling elms
among those sixty, empty parkland acres,
there at the birth of a city;

to have stood that night with the young architect,
self-taught, flamboyant, garrulous,
in love with high Edwardian Baroque;
to have shared his grand romantic gesture,
bringing a friend to view his work by moonlight.

to see his buildings carved from ice,
the clock tower’s pinnacle, the clock
counting its first hours towards us,
and moonlight through long windows of the marble hall
were pages yet to be written.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                
Gillian Clarke
28/10/2005