The Churchyard at Heptonstall

It’s somewhere round here, Tom says, and we search,

jeans soggy with wet grass and weeds,

stepping over plastic freesias, a child’s windmill,

till we find your headstone: bare, glinting marble.

The nettles have been strimmed, their leaves

wither on your grave of dark Yorkshire earth.

What did I expect – a primped shrine?

Meadow posies, offerings of verse?

Amongst the shorn stalks I see glints of treasure:

a shred of gold tinsel, limp sprigs of heather.

I hope your spirit flies far from this stern church,

On a New England breeze, tasting the brine.

Juliet West

Billingshurst