I have slipped through the years,
and am now an old-fashioned city.
The busy housewife used to wind
her way through the snickels,
delivering washing or to pay her pawn.
Minster now towers above my landscape-
roofs unevenly steep and my bars
or gates the Vikings named,
walls to walk with occasional surprise view.
See lanes where tanners and coppersmiths
carried out their craft and sold their ware.
My Blue Bridge meets Foss and Ouse.
Together they protect my heritage:
mostly now gasps of time forgotten
remembered only by buildings and names.