The boy read quietly

The boy read quietly

Barely audible from the other side

Of the table

The old man smiled

His head resting on the window

As the train clacked

Over well-worn tracks

There was comfort in it

He mumbled in appreciation

As the boy,

The look of a Grandson

Turned the page

‘A Tale of Two Cities’

It all seemed a little too Dickensian

For an Intercity link

There was another guy writing

On paper, with a pen, using ink

As the miles fell away

York Minster, a sun-drenched blur

I waited for Durham Cathedral

To fill the window

It always felt like home

Who were the Prince Bishops

Who ruled this land

So long ago

That they needed such

An imposing redoubt

Atop a hill

The Vikings discovered America

But settled in Northumbria

Would that they understood

The meaning of homecoming

Even after so long

Penshaw Monument stands tall

A folly if ever there was one

As the train rolls on

To Newcastle

I felt like Lawrence of Arabia

Until the engine slowed over the bridge

And it was as it always was

A different world from London

But still just a stop

The boy kept reading

The man mouthed the words

Perhaps they were headed

For Edinburgh

Another world away

But it was my time to change

For the short trip back

Along the coast

Where the coal tips

Used to be

Now, long since gone

No prodigal return

No best of times

No family or welcome

There is nothing left

But the impact of the past

With its closed collieries and

Mothballed shipyards

Old cranes pointing

Accusing fingers

Wellesian tripods

Victorian values

Bloodied in sacrifice

Working class nobility

Comradeship and kinship

That even now, still binds me

To the worst of times

And tugs my back

To the place where I was born