Pierre

Speracedes Easter '91

Seeking a quiet grave

In the evening light

We took the lower road

Where the old lavoirs stand

And the stream still winds

The contours of the hill.

Above the valley lights

We walked the village through

To where the terraced graveyard

Leaned against the hillside

And new graves jostled there

With old, for space and air.

One of them was yours

But which we did not know

Not this brown hump of soil

Nor this with a wooden cross

But this nameless one perhaps

Under bowls of flowers?

The place did not contain

Images we knew, your head bent

Over a book, your sudden smile,

Or saying as you dried a plate

At the kitchen sink "Next year,

I doubt I will be here".

You had two months left.

Now, at evening under the stars

This place is strange again.

Better return where your memory moves

In the place from whence we came

That is no longer quite the same.

©Terry Hodgson2024