A CHURCHYARD VISIT

It’s more of a garden than a yard,

dotted with red, yellow, lilac, a dozen

dark yews, views out to chalky downs.

Errant gulls squawk above the

softer sounds of Spring stealing inside

dry flint walls to see the season through;

the new one welcome – but something missing,

listening to the quiet conversation of

two churchyard spotters who tip-toe potter

up and down and to and fro’.

 

I follow, curious as to their complaint, and ask:

a sadness, it seems, but not for death –

instead a disappointment that late Spring’s

unchecked flourishings did overgrow

quite so many stories of sons and

daughters of that town, who knew that

draughty cold-stone, slate-spired place

for each joyful washing of a baby’s face, the

quiet dignity in each slow-dropped box; and

knew a chisel blade would mark that spot.

 

I join the pair, three silent guests we

inch along the rows of muted monuments

as in a wake for all who lie piled within these walls,

searching for a name, an age, a few words to give

life – old life, rich, warm and deep – to this place,

so that song from inside may be sung for the dead

just as much as those who will join them, in the fullness,

connecting forward, connecting back, as is right for

all of us. I pull aside thick ranks of bracken,

wayward saplings, and there in stone, moss and lichen:

 

John Mann, farmer, lover of this parish,

buried at forty, father of seven, leaves them all

in his fond Ann’s keeping; who shall not weep

abiding here, he did not die, he does but sleep.

 

We read and think we hear, all round, more

bracken crack, more saplings snap. Smiling, we

look at each other, sensing that we have, perhaps,

learned much and, in atoning for our carelessness,

brought breath to those who, unaware, gave  

breath to every one of us.