The church is still there
at the end
of the narrow road,
the high hedgerows
and the vicarage
remain pretty much
the same,
but you are not,
for you lie
in another place
of rest than this,
although I don't
know where.
The inside is as it was,
the choir stalls
where we sang
all those years ago,
are as they were
although seeming smaller,
the ***** is silent now,
but still where it was
when the semi-deaf
organist played back then.
I look around me
as I stand;
the same smell
old churches have,
coloured light
through the windows,
the lectern
where the vicar spoke
(sometimes too long),
and the wooden pews
where the aging
congregation sat
and listened
or fell asleep.
I walk around
the church outside
and pass old tombstones
aged by time,
cross the small
wooden bridge
where we once stood
and watched the water
pass below or kissed
in moonlight after choir
before the ride home.
I stand alone now
and you elsewhere,
cancer's hold took you down
your brother said,
that time he met me
in the town,
sometime after.
I hear birdsong
and wind in trees,
but not your laughter.
May 29, 2018
May 29, 2018 at 6:43 AM UTC
The church is still there
at the end
of the narrow road,
the high hedgerows
and the vicarage
remain pretty much
the same,
but you are not,
for you lie
in another place
of rest than this,
although I don't
know where.
The inside is as it was,
the choir stalls
where we sang
all those years ago,
are as they were
although seeming smaller,
the ***** is silent now,
but still where it was
when the semi-deaf
organist played back then.
I look around me
as I stand;
the same smell
old churches have,
coloured light
through the windows,
the lectern
where the vicar spoke
(sometimes too long),
and the wooden pews
where the aging
congregation sat
and listened
or fell asleep.
I walk around
the church outside
and pass old tombstones
aged by time,
cross the small
wooden bridge
where we once stood
and watched the water
pass below or kissed
in moonlight after choir
before the ride home.
I stand alone now
and you elsewhere,
cancer's hold took you down
your brother said,
that time he met me
in the town,
sometime after.
I hear birdsong
and wind in trees,
but not your laughter.
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