Steps, Wells

Several years ago I told the Connecticut workshop participants
      of my good fortune:
            a publisher had sent me an unexpected check,
                  and I had decided to use it to make a dream come true.
I was going to spend two weeks in England, by myself,
      photographing cathedrals—only cathedrals.
The couple who arranged this workshop said, “Be sure to go to Wells.”
I had been to England several times, but never to Wells.
So I went.
The great photographer Frederick Evans got there a hundred years before me,
      and he called this stairway “the sea of steps.”
It leads up to the chapter house on the right,
      then on toward the vicar’s residence through the doorway directly ahead.
I spent a long time standing at the bottom of that stairway, looking up.
How those broad steps do seem to undulate!
How that stonework has become so beautifully
      softened through centuries of use!
How that doorway invites not just my eye but my interest, even my whole being!
I planned to spend a day at Wells.
As it ended up, I had to tear myself away after spending
      more than twice that time.
The advice is sound: Be sure to go to Wells.